Taking the Scenic Route

Walgreens just won my loyalty for life.

Walgreens Rocks!!!

edited for clarity.  I started calling my parents “Mom” and “Dad” instead of “Grandma” and “Grandpa.”

Got a call from my Mom this morning asking if we would be available to go out to Caraba’s Italian Restaurant tonight for Zach’s birthday (which is on the 11th).  Oh yeah! 

We met them at the restaurant and had a great dinner.  The kids were great and both ate with gusto. 

When Zach was helping Zane decide what to get (we decided beforehand to get Zora whatever Zane wanted to avoid her trying to steal his food, which she is apt to do if it is different than hers).  At one point, Zane was trying to say “tomato”, but was not pronouncing it quite right, and they were doing the typical going back and forth working on how to pronounce it, when Zane paused for a minute and gave his Dad an exasperated look and declared “RED sauce”.  lol.  He was tired of trying to get the pronunciation right I guess.  He knew what he wanted and was not interested in speech skills just that minute. 

Zora tried to eat about everything not nailed to the table and she insisted on using a fork.  Of course, sometimes she was holding the fork in one hand and picking up food with her other hand.  lol.  The fork was HUGE in her little hand. 

At the end of the meal we got the kids ice cream sundaes.  Zora was sitting on Grandma’s lap, sort of between Grandma and Grandpa and Grandma was feeding her.  Grandpa swooped in with the spoon and scooped a bit of the fudge sauce off the side and Zora’s open mouth, tongue extended, followed the spoon all the way to Grandpa’s mouth and she gave him the dirtiest look when he ate it.  It was hysterical to see such a dramatic dirty look on such a little face.  lol.  (a note here:  Grandpa was not doing it to tease her or anything, he just has no side vision at all and didn’t see her looking at him)  The next bite my Grandma gathered with the spoon evidently did not have enough chocolate on it for her taste, so she pushed the spoon back and pointed to the chocolate, making it clear that that is what she wanted.  She got her chocolate.  Then she got some of her brother’s chocolate because he was too full to finish his ice cream.   The girl has good taste!

Zach also had the birthday song sung to him and got a piece of Tiramisu for dessert.  Zane helped him blow out the candle, and then Zane and I helped Zach finish his dessert.  (probably why he didn’t want to finish his ice cream).  It was very tasty.

When we went by our place afterward, Grandpa made a detour to the parts store and got something to put in the gas tank that might help our car.  Then they wrote us a check (a loan) to help us out so we wouldn’t lose our electricity, water, and phone, which were all set to be cut off by the end of this week.  That was a relief.  I am so grateful for their help through this time.  It helps a lot that I know we can repay them on a more definite time frame because it makes me not feel so weird accepting the help. 

On a fun note, Mom asked if we would be interested in having a date tomorrow, gave Zach some birthday money, and offered to watch the kids for us.  So, she is coming back tomorrow and we are off to see a matinee!  Now we just have to decide which one to see.  I am so excited!  Zane was pretty happy about the situation too.

Zora was asleep within minutes of them leaving.  She was so worn out from all the food and the excitement.  She did wake up later rather gassy, but after nursing, is back in Daddy’s arms and about to drift off again while I write this last paragraph.

A great day.

Today, for the first time ever, when Zane had a blowout in his diaper (miscommunication between the parents as to just how much fruit he had consumed and he had waaaaay too much), he came to me struggling not to cry and desperately saying “clean up, clean up”.  I was a bit confused, but saw the telltale signs running down his leg.  After Zach cleaned him up and got the chair he was sitting on, I mentioned to Zach that it was the first time that he actually seemed to CARE that his diaper was leaking.  He might notice it, but we would never know because he just never cared.  Zach said that he forgot to tell me that yesterday Zane took off his wet pull-up, threw it in the trash, and put on a clean one.

For five and a half years we have never seen a single sign on that list “are you ready to potty train” except that he is able to take on/pull off pants.  I can’t tell you how happy I am to realize we have seen two signs in the last two days.  I was getting geared up for another try, but was concerned it would, once again, be futile.  Now I have reason to hope he might actually figure this thing out.   That would be MAJOR.

On a cute note, when Zora saw us changing his pull-up earlier today, she went and grabbed a new one of hers and tried to pull hers off.  Maybe we will get a two-for-one deal.  We deserve to have her potty learning go easily…we’ve put in enough time already.  lol.

The good

Zach had his phone interview this morning and felt like it went well.  He will hear back in 7-10 days if they want to do an in person interview. We are really hoping he gets this job.  It is for a good company, with decent benefits and pay.  Keep your fingers crossed for us.

Zane said “hi, how are you?” to the people at the desk today.  He had to be heavily prompted to greet the therapist, but at least he got the initial greeting without prompts.

The bad

Well, money, but what’s new.  I hope he does get the new job and I hope it pays pretty quickly because we found out that his first fall paycheck won’t be until September.  So, he gets a paycheck on July 13th, but they are taking out double health insurance than normal and it leaves us very little after we pay our late July rent.  Then we get one on the 29th, that we have to pay August rent and have to try and live off the leftover until September.  Our September rent will be late unless we get another job, but we should be just fine from then on out.

The ugly

A lightening storm tonight killed Zane’s Gamecube.  This is a big deal for him because it was a major source of enjoyment for him.  I jokingly told dh that we should just get a Wii since it is backwards compatable.  lol.  Yeah, like that is going to happen.  We think the Gamecubes, if we can find them, are around $70-80ish, so it will be a while for us to replace it.  He does still have a Nintendo 64 and a few games on that, and, of course, the computer, but it sort of figures that the Gamecube would be the one that bit the dust since that is where most of his games are. 

I guess in another “good” is that just minutes before the lightening flash that killed the gamecube, we got our computers shut down and unplugged.  There was a surge not long before we unplugged them, so we still might have some problems, but they seem unscathed at this point. 

I forgot to mention the best thing about Robert’s family coming over the other day.  When Dori came in, she had barely cleared the doorway and Zane said “Hi, how are you?”.  He has never asked that before to anybody except therapist, and always with prompts.  She was so shocked it took a second to gather herself to answer.  When she greeting him back, he sort of mumbled a response as he was walking towards the kids, but I took the opportunity to pull him back and help him respond more appropriatly.  He got all shy and smiled as he said “I am fine”, and then went off to play with the kids.  It was really cool.

Robert’s family came over today for a potluck BBQ and we spent the evening hanging out, eating hot dogs, burgers and chips, and watching the kids play.  They spent a while out in the sprinklers, then Cody and Zane went and played playstation while Alex played on the computer.  The girls played together and then listened to Dori reading books for a bit.  I found out she is a big fan of Jan Brett, whom I discovered last Christmas time (when Zane decided to make “The Mitten” his favorite for a while).  I got the Goldilocks and the three bears book by her, hoping that Zane would love it as much too, but it has never really worked into his ‘favorites’ yet like “The Mitten” did.  I was excited to see Zora snuggle up with Eilysh as Dori read it.  She stayed longer for her than she does for me, but I think it is because Eilysh was there.  Shortly after Eilysh lost interest, Zora was off again, following her. lol.  I think Dori and I like the story and illustrations better than the kids do at this point.

It was a nice evening.  It was great for the kids to have people around like that.  Zane got really worn out, but I think it is because he doesn’t have the tolerance for people like he did when school was in session.  I need to be more proactive in getting him together with other kids to play so he doesn’t regress too much in that area.

The photos of this evening are under a protected post, but here is one of Zora waving bye-bye as she went to the grocery store with Daddy a few days ago.

Robert’s family came over for potluck BBQ and the kids decided to cool off in the sprinklers.  All had a lot of fun!

Eilysh is a mischevious little sweetie.

Alex was entertaining us all with his slapstick antics

Seeing if anybody notices she is sneaking off with Eilysh’s sippy cup.  (which has juice instead of the water she gets stuck with)

Well, we did end up having a neat moment tonight.  Zora fell asleep and Zach, Zane and I stood outside, under a big umbrella, watching all the fireworks go off in the drizzle/rain.  This neighborhood has a much higher caliber of fireworks than our previous place. lol.  It was really great.  Then we went inside and ate our cheesy, gooey casserole to take the chill off.  *sigh* 

Our 4th of July plans got canceled.  Our car sounds funny and isn’t riding quite right, and Dad is helping my uncle harvest today, and it isn’t fair to them for us to take the chance of interrupting harvest with a car breakdown. 

Not only are we missing going out to the farm, but I was really hoping to give Zane his first experience riding in the combine at harvest time. 

I can not wait until we are able to replace this car with something more reliable.  I hate being limited by our car so often.  We already know that we can’t go to the downtown fireworks because of our car…we tried it a few years back, two years in a row, and each time our car stalled out in the middle of the traffic jam.  That is something I don’t wish to EVER repeat again.  Talk about nerve-wracking.  Plus, our car is a few years older and now regularly stalls out at simple traffic lights, which it wasn’t doing as much back then.  We are sort of considering going to Park City’s fireworks, but I think we are resigned to just sticking around here.  It looks like it might rain anyway.  In a way, I hope it does rain and the fireworks are delayed so we can have a chance of seeing if there is a solution to our car sounding weird.  It could be as simple as transmission fluid…one can hope, right? lol.

It has, however, been a fairly productive day.  We have done quite a bit of cleaning and my last load of laundry is about ready for the dryer now.  We are making a casserole with leftover noodles, tomato sauce, some meatballs and cheese.  Not very “4th of July”-like, but it should be good.  And, you can’t forget the Monk marthon on tv.  It will still be a nice evening, just not the planned one.

Zach has a job interview next Monday morning.  Yeah!