Big Boy Underwear

At the beginning of the school year as we were buying new clothes for the boys, I asked Zeke if he would like to start getting big boy underwear now that he was in first grade. You know the kind that doesn't have race cars and dirt bikes and bug pictures all over them. He said absolutely not. So we bought a bunch of new designs to start the year off. Imagine my surprise when he came home last week and asked for big boy underwear. It seems that while playing intermural basketball at school the boys all change for practise together in the locker room. Well, the other boys were making fun of Zeke for wearing baby underwear -- now we can't have that. So we have now graduated to boxer briefs -- with no pictures.

In other news, Caden's staff infection has almost completely cleared up and we are going through another bad time of teething. He has had the worst time with teeth. He is miserably difficult to deal with when he is teething. Especially for a baby who is generally extremely easy to handle. His climbing seems to be getting out of control. It doesn't seem to matter how many times he almost falls or even falls he gets right back up to do it again. The higher and the more difficult the climb the better. Today he managed to do a front flip over the top rail of his playpen and right out onto the floor. Although he seemed a little surprised to find himself on the floor lying flat on his back, he jumped right back up and proceeded to try and climb back into the play pen. Crazy Kid.

As promised I have attached a picture of Caden in his 1 year old pictures a week after Grandma and Mommy gave him his first haircut. It took both of us -- one to hold him down and the other to take quick snips of hair.

Moving

It is official. They have accepted our offer for the house. So, now I need to start researching the laws on homeschooling in West Virginia. I had already done all the looking into Virginia since I was sure that was where we would be moving, and now it is back to square one. It turns out while not being against homeschooling, West Virginia is much more information hungry and legally controlling than Florida. It is still not that bad -- just more paperwork.

We are starting to work out the logistics of getting all of our stuff moved up there without going bankrupt. We may have a friend and his wife help us road trip all our vehicles up there in late May or early June. That will be nice. We hope to have everything up there and in the house by end of June. Especially since Chris is scheduled to deploy the last week or so of June. It would be nice to be settled before he leaves. Of course there is also the need to get this house in order.

This weekend was to be a big weekend to get ALL the little projects done that I cannot do ( IE. electrical and plumbing upgrades ). Alas, there has been a freezing rain/ice storm in Baltimore and so Chris is still there -- not here. There is always painting. Have I mentioned I really don't like painting. Maybe it is just because it seems that every time I am painting it is to move and let someone else enjoy the fruits of my labor. We have finished a few more small projects around the house, and hopefully will get most the rest done before Wednesday of next week. If Chris' plane gets out on time tomorrow morning he will miss the boys basketball games but be here in time to help with all the home improvement work.

We leave for Spring Break in DC next Thurs morning and we want to have the house on the market within two weeks of getting back.

We are praying for a quick sell so that we will not have to endure too many months of double mortgage payments.

For those who have not seen it I have included a picture of Caden before his one year hair cut. We call this picture crazy hair. Next time I will show the after picture.

Finished

It feels so good to have finished a project. I have finally finished the inside of the utility room. It looks so nice. Now we just need to replace the door and door stop and it is on to the laundry room. Meanwhile in other parts of the house we are also finishing Rusty's bathroom (we will paint it today), and replacing the bathtub fixtures in both bathrooms. Oh yeah one new project popped up last week. The baby was standing on the window sill ( 2 inches off the ground ) in the sun room and it boke all the way along the window, so now we will need to replace that too. Those are all the indoor projects that are in progress. Of course there are others -- they just aren't in progress yet. Oh joy. Rusty unloaded a wheel barrow of rocks into the pond today. The previous owner thought the best landscape solution for the front of the yard was to fill the flower beds with ugly river rocks. Not saying that river rocks can't be pretty -- in the right environment. So we decided the best way to get rid of them was to cart them off in the wheel barrow down to the pond and throw them in. The boys don't enjoy filling the wheel barrow so well, but they do have a lot of fun throwing the rocks and skipping the rocks into the pond. I shoveled dirt for about 30 minutes today. I have a long way to go if I am going to get the pool landscaping ready for sod when Chris comes home this weekend. The pile of dirt is so big. Homeschooling is going pretty well. Russell and I have settled in now it seems. Aside from the occasional grumble things are running smoothly. His attention and performance are back were they should be and he is helping a lot around the house. It sure is nice having him around to give me a chance to do some housework or projects while he watches the baby. I knew I separated the kids by all those years for a reason :). Today, I have included a picture of our baby Kadiy -- she is a week older than Caden. We got her last Feb and she is such a good dog, although sometimes I think a better name for her would have been Eeyore because that is definitely her personality.

The Pediatrician

We went to see the pediatrician this morning and it was a really good visit. I paid another $20 for the same problem but the experience was so much better. I described for him Caden's problem and before I could even unwrap it and show it to him he said -- "sounds like a staff infection" . NO WAY. . . Anyway, I told him of our experience in the ER and he apologized for the young new doctors over there. Fortunately for us Cadens system was fighting the infection off so well on his own that the blisters had all gone down by today. Unfortunately they were unable to confirm Staff because of this very thing -- no blister juice to take a culture of. So, based on my description and how it looked today he gave me an oral antibiotic for Caden to take to help finish off the staff infection that he most likely has, and we have to go back next week to make sure there is no secondary infections starting up. I feel vindicated and yet somehow I am really missing that $102 I spent at the emergency room :). We should know tomorrow if our counter-offer was accepted for the house we are trying to buy. I am so excited.

Emergency Room Visit

Well, we had a very productive weekend this weekend. Chris took the day off Friday and flew home Thursday afternoon. Thursday and Friday we worked hard on the house. We changed the Dinning room light fixture, installed new hot water heater and outlets and switch in the utility room, and put carpet down. Outside, we cleaned up the pool ( the boys actually went in for a few minutes, but the water was a little cold ), got a load of dirt delivered to finish the pool landscaping, and burned another big pile of the tree we had to cut down. By Saturday morning I was feeling a little under the weather and was close to useless buy Sunday morning. After sleeping all day Sunday I am feeling much better although not 100 percent. Saturday morning Russell brought Caden to show me this weird mark on his arm. There was a big red spot by his wrist about 2 inches long and one inch wide. I assumed that it was a reaction to being bitten by some insect while outside playing. So, off we went to basketball games. After the games we went to the park for a picnic of fried chicken etc. . . We spent about 2 hours eating and playing and then left. As we were leaving the park we noticed that Caden's red spot had started to blister up -- how weird. We immediately went to the store and bought ointment and wraps for his arm. And, of course, called my father ( the kids call him the walking book of knowledge ) . We talked to Grandpa and he seemed to think it might be a staff infection and we should go to the Emergency room to have it looked at. Caden and I went on our first visit to an Emergency room sans Tri-care. Boy was I nervous about the $$. I checked in and the nurse told me it looked like a burn. I told him there was no way it could be a burn and we proceeded to wait for the doctor. The wait was not too long except that even 30 minutes in a room with no toys and no books is an eternity to spend with a tired yet active 15 month old. The doctor came in -- never touched Caden -- looked at the arm from 5 feet away and told me it was a burn. After grilling me about all the places he could possibly have burnt himself only to find that none of those were actually possible in Caden's case, he actually suggested that Caden must have wandered off to a neighbors house and gotten burnt over there and they just brought him back. I went off. First of all my 15 month old does not just wander off on his own and even if he did he would have to miraculously figure out how to open the gate and walk 100 yards down the road to the closest neighbors house. Then, the Dr. told me he was at a loss. Couldn't figure it out must be a burn or some rare reaction to some insect bite. Go home put neosporine on it and wrap it up. Come back if it gets worse. All, of this cost me an hour in the ER and $100 out of pocket. It is now Monday, and the spot doesn't look worse but it is definitely not better and my pediatrician can't fit me in until tomorrow. Now I get to go pay more money and spend more time in a doctors office. House update, we placed an offer on the house we like on Friday and received a counter offer Sunday evening. Originally we wanted to stipulate a late closing around the end of May so it wouldnt interfere with school. The realtor didn't think that would fly, and then I realized Chris would be at Natl Guard Annual Training the last 2 weeks of May so we said how about 10 May. In there Counter offer they said ok to early May but wanted to rent the place from us until end of school. Haha. How funny. We want nothing to do with renting it to them, especially since they arent willing to pay even as much as our mortage payment would be on that house, so we are asking to push the closing to June. Appearantly that will work better for all of us. It also gives us time to sell the FL house before getting hit with 2 mortgage payments at once. We are all excited about the new place, but are also anxiously trying to figure out how to get all of our stuff up there ( 3 motorcylces /with trailer, a dune-buggy, mini-bike, Lincoln Navigator, fifth-wheel with truck to pull it, Chris' old truck, Chris' race car -- Datsun, the 1970 mustang and last but not least Rusty's sailboat. The stuff in the house, 3 kids and 4 dogs are the easy part. HAHAHA

HOA

I have never lived anywhere that so many people seem so obsessed with everyone else' business. HOA's -- I really dislike them. We lived in one when we first moved to FL and decided we never wanted to live in one ever again. Apparently there is no other option if you move to the North East. I am having a hard time right now because of this. We found the house that seemed like it was "our" house. We were actually ready to make an offer. Then, the Covenants. Here is the problem. First, Russell saved his money from the time he was 4 til he was 8 to buy a sailboat because he loves boats. Then, when we moved up here we bought the boys a dirt bike and a dune buggy to ride ( which are really fun ). Oh yeah, don't forget the RV we just bought so we can travel more and the trailer to tow the motorcycles. All these things add up to -- NOT WANTED IN THE NORTH EAST. I thought people moved out to the country and bought land so that others would stay out of their business and they could have room to do as they please on their own land. I guess I was wrong. Evidently they do it so they can stare at the land and do nothing with it except claim it as a status symbol. We have been told that if we buy the house we love we will not be alllowed to use the dirt bike or dune buggy on our own 4.5 acres. and that we will not be allowed to park the boat or RV or trailer anywhere on our property that is visible to anyone. Do they have any idea how expensive it is to build a RV Garage??? There is always the storage option. Pay exorbitant fees to park your stuff somewhere else that is inconvenient any time you want to use it. AAAAHHHHHHHH. I feel much better now that I have vented a little. I guess the worst is -- I really want that house, and I don't just want that house, I want to move up there were we can see Chris more often than the weekends. I want so much more than this area can offer for the boys but at what cost?

Isn't Auri quite the artist

Today we had 2 basketball games. Russell almost broke his nose getting hit by the ball. Boy did it bleed. I think it scared him. They both played really good games and had a lot of fun and then trudged off to their father's house for the night. That is more of a struggle every week. It is so hard to make them go when they don't want to but we have no other choice. Caden and I came home and being both desperately in need of a nap we did just that. Chris called me at the end of nap time to tell me he was out looking at houses, and I got up to help Navigate him with the aid of Map Quest. It was somewhat comical and frustrating, but he was able to see 6 of the 7 places he set out to look at today. I think we/he decided that there are 3 maybe 4 we want to go back to see again. Happily, the tree house place made the initial cut. We will see what happens when we get to look inside. When Chris was on his way back to the hotel I left to have dinner and a play date with a friend of mine who has a daughter 1 month younger than Caden. We used to fly together and her husband is also Army National Guard so we have a lot in common. Her oldest daughter, Auri, drew for me the picture at the top of the post tonight. She is quite the artist ( just turned 7). We had a really good time and the babies wore themselves out. Caden fell asleep almost before we left the driveway. Hopefully he will sleep late tomorrow morning. Oh yeah - I forgot -- I also pulled out Auri's tooth tonight. She was so excited. I hope the tooth fairy is generous to her.

A Tree House

A couple weeks ago we had to cut down part of a tree in our yard. Insects got to it last summer, and before I could do anything about it half the tree was dead. Unfortunately this was also the boy's favorite climbing tree. Of course we still haven't heard the end of it. So last week when we were talking to the boys about moving they put in their requests. Lots of big old trees so they can build a tree house fort. We told them we would keep that in mind while we were looking. Chris has been talking with a realty group and has set up an appointment to meet with them next week. In preparation for his meeting with them they sent him a list of about 70 homes that met our criteria in their area. As it happens Chris missed his flight to Jackson MS where he was supposed to be doing Natl Guard duty this weekend, and with all the weather delays they just weren't going to be able to get him out of D.C. to do guard. Lucky us, Chris has a list of homes in hand and is stuck in D.C. for the weekend. OK, not really so lucky for us to spend the weekend apart, but I am trying to look on the positive side. Last night we say down (on the phone/internet ) with the list of 70 and looked at each one to see what he might go look at today. We narrowed it down to 7. As we were looking we found this home that I really loved. From the pictures it looks to be exactly what we are looking for, and then we looked in the backyard (all 4 acres of it). It is partially wooded, with an in-ground pool already so we don't have to put one in and the best of all it already has a big Tree House Fort. To top it all off it is Well inside of our budget. I am so excited to hear how it looks when he goes to see it today. Of course now I am super motivated to get the FL house ready and on the market.

The Tooth Fairy

The tooth fairy finally made his second visit to Zeke last night. He seems to have about as much trouble loosing teeth as Caden does getting them. Both of Zeke's first 2 permanent teeth have been halfway in before he lost the baby teeth. The first one we actually had to pull out for him because it was causing so much trouble. On the other hand, Caden is 15 months and has what I like to refer to as 3.5 teeth. His fourth tooth has still not descended all the way. It is only about half as far out as the one next to it. It has been that way for so long that I am beginning to think it will stay the way until he looses it 5 years from now. Anyway, I am not used to this whole idea of being 15 months and not having Many teeth. The dentist says it is a good thing though. Supposedly the longer it takes to get them the stronger they are. HMMM.