A phone conversation with Aidan

Mom: Hi, is Dad there?

Aidan: He's feeding Owen.

Mom: Oh, okay. I need you to go in the kitchen and tell me how much beef I need for a recipe.

Aidan: Ok.

Mom: Find the cookbook that's out on the counter.

Aidan: Ok, I got it. It says, "Beef Lumdy... Lurdy... "

Mom: Beef Lombardi

Aidan: Yeah

Mom: Ok, look the the list of ingredients and tell me how much beef I need.

Aidan: Umm, I don't see it on here.

Mom: It should say "ground beef"

Aidan: Here's ground chuck...

Mom: That's it. How much does it say to use?

Aidan: One l-b

Mom: L-b means pound. So one pound. Thanks!

Aidan: Bye Mom!

A Comprehensive Guide to Grocery Store Behavior

My dear children seem to be in need of a refresher course in this area, and so I am preparing this manual for them... Actually, we did have a pleasant moment today in the store when Aidan asked if we could look at toys, and I said no. He responded with, "okay," and another shopper commented, "Wow, that was easy!" However, for the most part, all of our obedience and good sense leaves us the moment we enter a retail establishment.

In the parking lot:

• We do not run.
• We do not skip.
• Or jump. Or play hop scotch. Or anything else that should happen into our punkin' heads.
  
• We do not climb on the structure that holds carts. That is made for putting carts away, not for children to use as a jungle gym.
• We do not pick up interesting things that we find in the parking lot.
  
• We watch for cars, but we do not point our fingers at cars like we are shooting them.
• We do not climb up the outside of the building. (One of mine has tried this. More than once. No joke.)
  

In the store:

• We do not say "can we buy" or "do we need" or any other variation on this question.
• We do not run.
• We do not run in circles around the cart.
• We do not run in circles around those posts that go up to the ceiling (do those have names??)
• We do not walk s-l-o-w-l-y and then yell, "MOMMY WAIT FOR MEEEE!" as we run full speed ahead to catch up with Mom who is 2 ft. ahead.
• We do not swing our arms wildly while walking.
  
• We talk to our siblings, but we do not play tickle games or hiding games.
• We do not point out to Mom every single item we see that is JUST LIKE one that we have at home. Mom does not need to acknowledge every box of Life cereal, loaf of bread, or box of kleenex that is "just like we have!"
• We try our best not to be in the way of others. We try not to take up the entire aisle with just our family.
• We do not run our hands along all the price tags that stick out from the shelves.
• We do not run our hands along the raw meat case.
• We do not touch all the packages of raw meat.
• We try to not ask "What's this?" while point to items (some of them embarrasing) more than 5 times in a single aisle.
  

In the check-out:

• We do not climb up onto the bagging area.
• We do not push the button to make the conveyor belt move.
• We do not touch all the packages of candy and toys.
• We do not ask Mom to calculate how much more allowance we need to afford a yo-yo ball while she is trying to pay.
• We do not play with the credit card machine.

Hopefully this instruction guide will be helpful in your family! Or, you can follow my best rule of all, which is that Mom does most of the shopping while the kids are home with Dad!

Dog Story, Part 3

This is our new puppy!!! He is another cavachon, coming from a breeder in Iowa. We have been really impressed with these people. Granted, we haven't met them in person or seen their kennel, but they really seem to be very professional and care a lot about their dogs. We can't get the dog until he is 10 weeks old, which was a big selling point to us. These people don't wean their dogs until 8 1/2 weeks and won't let them go until 10 weeks, and so the dog should be a little more mature and ready to train when he gets to us. And, Lord willing, this dog will be healthy!

Aidan is planning to name him Crockett, after Davy Crockett, of course. He is coming by airplane on July 29th.

Owen Update

Owen is now 13 months old, and we are still working on getting him onto solid foods... He actually has been doing pretty well lately. He has been drinking his bottles well for a few months now, but his solid food intake has been really up and down. A meal for him can be 5 cheerios or 3 bites of toast. I'm not kidding... My other two were picky at this age, but ate the foods they liked in mass quantities, so feeding Owen has been an interesting adventure! Last week he did great - he ate all kinds of things like taco meat mixed with pasta, fresh cooked green beans, bananas, etc. This week he is not doing so well, but he had a molar poke it's way through the other day, and more are definitely on the way.

We stopped his Nexium per doctor's orders on Wednesday. The thinking is that he should be over his gastritis by now, and it's a good age to try getting him off the medicine. So far, it doesn't seem to be bothering him to be off it. He's not eating great, but I think that is from the teething. It's so hard to know, and there are so many factors that it just gets very frustrating at times. I wanted to try him on dairy again before stopping the Nexium, but I never got a chance. We've tried to re-introduce dairy twice, and both times he has started spitting up and waking up from naps screaming, but both times there have ended up being other things going on - teething or the onset of a cold... I've been waiting for a good time to try dairy one more time, but that just hasn't happened yet! My gut feeling is that he is truly bothered by dairy. He tested negative for a dairy allergy, though, so it would just be an intolerance that he would most likely grow out of. The bummer is that he really likes grilled cheese and macaroni and cheese and eats those things really well.

I keep telling myself that I'm sure he won't be taking his bottle of alimentum to Sunday School while the other kids eat goldfish and animal crackers... Surely one day we'll be past this stage!

He is walking now, though! I'll have to post pictures. It's very cute. By the way, I am having trouble posting videos from my new camera. It records in high-def, so maybe that's just too much to upload?

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A few funny things...

I have been teaching the kids a new song during Bible time. We are learning about Joshua, and I taught them a song from high school youth group based on Joshua 1:8-9. Aidan was singing it the other day...
"Do not let this book of the law, book of the law depart from your mouth. Medicate, medicate, medicate on it day and night..."
"It's meditate son, not medicate."
"Oh."

The boys and I were reading a library book. It was a mystery about a farm and some missing peppers.
Aidan: What are peppers?
Mom: You know. Green bell peppers and red peppers.
Aidan: Oh yeah...
Gresham: And wood peppers.
Mom: No, those are wood peckers...

Snack Time

Usually we have a basket of library books on this shelf, but I had to take away the library books this week after Owen ripped FOUR of them... He loves to eat paper. Cardboard, book pages, toilet paper, any kind of paper... We really do try to feed him, but for some reason he just can't get enough paper. And soap. He tastes soap whenever he can. Anyway... yesterday he was sitting on this little shelf and reaching into his diaper bag to find some wipes to chew on (similar enough to paper), and he discovered a baggie of goldfish. He had a great time sitting there eating his snack, and I was happy that the snack was food!


After pulling Owen out of the millionth "no-no" of the day, I put him in his pack 'n play so that I could make dinner. I started hearing rustling paper, and thought, "He's in the pack 'n play, it can't be Owen with MORE paper!" Well, sure enough, he had found some paper!

This is our John MacArthur study Bible, so it was a good choice. Well, a good choice for reading, not ripping. We'll say he was trying to read it...

Gresham

Dog Story, Part 2

Poor Martha... we miss her... I sure hope that the pet store people actually treated her sickness and didn't just try to pawn her off on someone else...

So after poor Martha was gone, we went on a quest for another puppy. A healthy one. Well, actually we had to wait for our computer to get back from being fixed, and then we started perusing the options.

We could get another cavachon from a real breeder, but that would cost big bucks, so we decided to try craigslist.

On Monday, I found a litter of shih tzu puppies for a reasonable price, so I loaded up the kids in the van, and we went to look at them. After ringing the doorbell many times, the lady finally answered as we were just giving up and walking to our car. She apologized, and said that they were busy giving the puppies baths because they had discovered fleas... The overall situation at this house was not great, but it wasn't like we would ever have to see these people again, so I couldn't decide... but in the end, we decided to hold out for a different breed.

On Monday night, I found some schnoodle puppies (schnauzer poodle mix) for an even more reasonable price. Jordan and I talked and decided that I should investigate this one, and if it was a no, we'd pay the big bucks for the cavachon and just be done with it. We didn't want to drive all over the place looking at craigslist dogs and get the boys' hopes up and then come home without a dog.

I called the lady, and she suggested meeting south of downtown Ft. Worth since she lives 25 miles south of Ft. Worth. She suggested a restaurant that she knew of. We agreed to meet at 10:00 a.m.

We got to the restaurant right at 10:00, and the lady wasn't there, but we weren't worried yet. Actually, given the restaurant (sleazy cheap steak house with broken glass all over the parking lot) I should have taken that as a sign and just headed for home... but we didn't... I finally called the lady, and she said that she was just leaving the house and would be another 25 minutes. Fine, no problem, we went to get gas. That killed about 15 minutes. After it had been 35 min, I called her again. They were just getting out of construction traffic and would be another 10 min. Fine, we went to a gas station to get water bottles.

She had told me to look for a gold camaro. That description ended up being kind of a stretch. "Spray painted yellow" would have been a better fit.

The puppy was sure cute. Gresham would have nothing to do with her, though, because he wanted another "Martha." Aidan liked her. As I held her, fleas were crawling onto my shirt. The lady said that she hadn't had any shots yet. Hmmm. This was not exactly the healthy dog I had in mind. I called Jordan to get his opinion, while the lady and her daughter hovered over me and Gresham ran laps around the van (which was running). He shows his displeasure by being uncooperative.

Jordan figured that we could spend a lot at the vet on this dog and still not spend as much as a cavachon, but said that it was up to me since I would be the one to have to get rid of her fleas and such. I hesitantly decided to go for it.

Bad move.

Next time, I'll go with my gut reaction.

As soon as I paid, Gresham burst into tears that it wasn't a "Martha." We drove home, and the dog's nose kept running... here we go again... fleas were getting all over Aidan while he held her in the car.

I decided that this dog needed more care than we could give her. The people lied about her age, because she was obviously not really 8 weeks. (A vet later confirmed that she was 6 weeks.) She had more accidents in her first afternoon than Martha had all week. Aidan and I spent afternoon nap time trying to rid her of her fleas. Jordan gave her another flea bath right before bed time, and so we put her in her crate on the back porch so that the fleas could jump off her out there. By morning, the crate was covered with poop, and the puppy needed another bath.

But, the story has a happy ending! I was able to give the puppy to a teacher at my school who has been looking for a schnoodle! She took her to the vet and found out that she needs vitamins, antibiotics, and flea treatment. When I called to see how the puppy was doing, she had the vaporizer running for her. This dog is going to be a whole lot happier at their house...

Her new family named her "Ruby."

So now, we're saving up to buy a cavachon from a reputable breeder... maybe in the fall...