To Keep the Child Home or Not to.........

I have not yet mastered the the ability to determine if my children are too sick to go to school. Even though I have been home for 2 years, I am still a fairly new stay at home mother when you consider that I worked from the time Taylor and Shea were 2 and 4 until they were 10 and 12. The man I used to worked for was an Ogre. He had no thought or consideration for any one's personal life. We were there to work, and we were there to work hard. Family was secondary to all else. Therefore, in order to keep the peace and refrain from getting verbally attacked, unless someone was profusely vomiting, I used to call my mom at 6:30 in the morning and ask if I could bring the kids to her house. She was always willing to drop everything and help me whenever she could, to which I will always be grateful. 2 years ago, when I quit my job to stay home with the kids, it became very easy to stay home if you were the kid, and very easy to keep the kid home of you were me. I was getting completely taken advantage of. So, last year, I decided to be a little tougher. If they didn't have a fever, or weren't throwing up, I sent them to school. As a result, usually 1 hour later, I would receive a call from the nurse asking me to come pick up my sick kid.

This year, I need to find a happy medium. Shea has stayed home twice already, and school has only been in session for a little over a month. There is no doubt that she didn't feel that great when she woke up, but I also think that she probably could have survived the 7 hours at school. The next time she is sick, I might just have to send her and hope for the best. It might teach her a lesson. And at least if I get a call an hour later, I'll know that she REALLY is sick!

Homecoming

This weekend was Taylor's Homecoming Dance. She and her friends had a blast. I know I am bragging, but she looked gorgeous! The whole day went off without a hitch too, which NEVER happens!

Taylor and her friend Stephanie got there hair done at the same salon, and from there, went to my mother in law's house to get dressed. We took some pictures there, and then the girls met their other 2 friends at a Japanese hibachi restaurant. After they ate, we took more pictures at the local park The girls felt like movie stars, and had so much fun posing! The dance went from 7-11, and Taylor said that she and the girls danced the entire time!

I took so many pictures that I couldn't choose which ones to put on the blog, so I created a website on Shutterfly to view all the pictures. Here is the link - http://thewootangclan.shutterfly.com/

It Stinks to be the Youngest

School Spirit

We live in a big football town. Everyone loves High School football here. This weekend is Homecoming weekend and the High School has a huge assembly today to boost the spirit before the game tonight. All the kids were instructed to wear their school colors, which are red and black. When I pulled up in front of the school, every kid was wearing red and black in some form. I noticed a certain buzz of excitement while everyone walked into school. There was a large group of kids tailgating in the student parking. They had a grill on the back of a pickup truck and were grilling hotdogs. How fun is that??

When I was in High School, there were the cool kids, and the not so cool kids, and no one ever mingled. Nothing has changed since then. But for today, it doesn't matter if they are a football player or the nerdiest kid in school; they all feel the same way. They love their school, and want to show their school spirit.


P.S. I will let you know how the dance goes for Taylor tomorrow night. She is going with a few girlfriends. So far we have only had one minor meltdown involving the hair appointment, which was rectified shortly after. If you read my earlier post on her O.C.D. problem, you will appreciate how miraculous that is.

Taylor Cheering on Her Team

Is She Cool or What??

My Son Hates Food

I have tried to feed Nicholas Rice cereal, all the vegetables and most of the fruits, and he doesn't like any of them. He makes a face like I am poisoning him. I don't know what to try next. I just keep giving them to him every few days in the hopes that he will change his mind. Once he has teeth, I am hoping that he will eat table food. Maybe it's just the baby food that he doesn't like.

I have visions of packing a thermos of formula for his lunch when he goes to school.

Our fun weekend with Nonni

Nick's mom spent the weekend with us since my father in law was out of town. Isabella had so much fun playing with her Nonni all weekend long. She never heard the words, "in a minute, I'm busy, or later". When she wanted to play, Nonni was more than happy to oblige.

Unfortunately, on Sunday morning, Isabella came down with a fever and vomiting spell. My mother in law is not supposed to be around any sickness, so Nick had to scurry her home. By mid afternoon, Isabella started to feel better, but it soon caught up with her again, and she was down and out on the couch for the rest of the day. This morning, she is feeling much better, but is still not eating or playing with as much gusto as usual. This poor child gets every illness out there. If it's looming around, she picks it up. On the positive side, she will probably never miss a day of kindergarten since her immune system will be so strong.

Let's hope that I can keep her away from Nicholas for the next few days.

Today is Nicholas' 7 Month Birthday!

The Most Beautiful Girls in the World

Sunday at the Zoo

Sunday we went to the Zoo for the day. The sky looked threatening all day and the weather channel said there was a 70% chance of rain, but we took the chance anyway. The weather was perfect all day, but very hot and muggy. Of course, Nicholas did not want to sit in his stroller, so carrying him around most of the day was not only killing my arms and back, but it added about 10 degrees of heat. In addition, his new thing is to wrap his arms tightly around the back of my neck, and pull my hair with both hands as hard as he can until I can pry his fingers open. Other than that.....I had a good time.

By the end of the day, the wind had seriously picked up and we thought we should head out before we were stuck in a storm walking back to our car. By the time we got home an hour later, the wind was so high that our trees in the woods were bending almost completely sideways. Taylor and Shea were outside in the yard and heard several neighbors' trees falling. At 8:00 that night, our power went out. Since I am rarely prepared for such events, we had 1 flashlight that had a rechargeable battery. I lit a ton of candles, and we sat in the dark hoping that the lights would come back on. They didn't. We put Isabella in our bed because we were afraid that we wouldn't hear her without the baby monitor working. She thought we were having a party and would not stop talking to Nick and me. We finally got her to fall asleep, but we were suddenly awakened by a Bat in our room trying to fly out our window. I think bats are disgusting and they scare the hell out of me, so to have one in my bedroom at 3:00 AM is very alarming. He flew out of our room and Nick couldn't find him anywhere in the house. So we had to try to go back to sleep and hope he stayed away from us. By morning, the power was still out, so I took the kids to school late, and then went to my parents house to hang out with them for the day. They also did not have power, but I did not want to be in the house with the bat.

My father-in-law came over later that night while the kids and I were at WalMart buying water and flashlights to capture the bat. I will not get into details, but let's just say, that bat made a fatal error flying into our house on Sunday.

Finally, late Monday night, our power came back on. I was so thankful! It felt like days had gone by, but it was only 26 hours. We have well water, so when the power goes out, so does our water. We can't run the water in the sinks, and we can't flush the toilets. We had buckets of pool water from my parents house to pour down the toilet every time we had to flush. We were brushing our teeth and washing our faces with bottled drinking water. It was a pain in the butt! I would never survive without the comforts of modern civilization.

Happy Birthday Nonni!

I am a little behind on posting my blogs, but we had a power outage until late Monday night, and no phone, or Internet until late yesterday.

Saturday night we celebrated my mother-in-law's birthday. Isabella and Nicholas have been sick all week with colds and an intestinal bug, so we were concerned that we would not be able to go to the party. But, by Friday night, they were both feeling much better, and we were all able to go. Isabella would have been thoroughly bummed out if she had missed out. She talked of nothing else for 3 days leading up to the party.

Mom, I hope you had a great time with everyone at your party, and I hope you enjoyed your day yesterday. Happy Birthday!

On the Move

When Nicholas was born, I continuously received advice and comments on how difficult boys were and how different they were from girls. People would say, just wait, you will see... It used to annoy me that there was such a stigma surrounding boys. There couldn't possibly be that much of a difference. My girls are not these prissy little things that never did anything naughty or dangerous. I felt like everyone was welcoming me to this big club of "Boy Mothers", and frankly, I didn't want to be a member. I received a card from someone and she had written, "get out your roller skates". All I thought was, whatever!! I have to be honest, when I was pregnant, I did not want a boy. I was happy with my girls and I wanted to remain a mother of all girls. I had visions of our 4 girls all prim in their dresses for our family photos; my husband surrounded by a bunch of women his whole life and loving it; the two littlest girls taking ballet classes together and playing for hours with their dolls and barbies. Well.......to my enormous surprise, out came Nicholas. All I could think was, what am I going to do with him??? In a matter of minutes, I was so attached to my son and so in love with him that my heart hurt.

However........He is completely mobile now, and DOES NOT STOP! He is into everything and anything he can get his hands on. The more dangerous the item is, the more appeal it has. The edge of the fireplace, the edges of the coffee table, the corners of the baseboards, etc. I think he assesses his surroundings, and determines what can harm him the most and he goes for it. My sweet little girls were all very content as babies to sit in the center of the living room floor and play with whatever toys I presented to them. Isabella did not venture onto the slate floors for months because it hurt her delicate little knees too much. Nicholas does not care if it hurts. It's worth the pain to get out of the living room and explore the rest of the house.

OK all you Boy Mothers, I concede. There is a difference between boys and girls, and this one has me running!

Pet Peeve

I have this thing about Thank You Notes and what should be written in them. It is especially bothersome when the person is thanking me for a wedding or shower gift. I received a thank you note yesterday from Nick's cousin and his wife whose wedding we attended in June. They are much younger than us and are in their early twenties. I was pleasantly surprised at the content of the note. The bride thanked us for not only attending the wedding, but traveling the two hours to get there. She then thanked us for the gift, which happened to be money, and told us what they planned to do with the money. Technically, one is supposed to send out thank you notes within 2 months of the wedding, but I will let the 2 week delay slide. To be honest, it was kind of a pain in the neck to go to the wedding, and the few months leading up to the wedding were slightly dramatic. I was very happy with the decision to go to the wedding, and after receiving the thank you note, I feel even more satisfied with our decision.

On the other hand, Nick and I attended another wedding where the couple was in their late thirties. We received a thank you note 4 MONTHS LATER that said something like thank you for coming to our wedding and thank you for the votive. Sincerely, Blah, blah, blah & Blah, blah, blah. I personally went to the mall, walked around Pottery Barn during the Christmas season while being 7 months pregnant, and dragged my 16 month old with me, who hates shopping more than anyone I know. I found a very beautiful vase (NOT a votive!) I made a separate trip to Target for a card and wrapping paper. We had to find a babysitter for Isabella, and had to block out the entire afternoon and evening to be at the wedding. Could she not think of anything more witty to say? I don't care if it's the ugliest gift you've ever received. LIE! It makes you look tacky and ungrateful otherwise.

How refreshing it is to see that there are some parents out there that are teaching their children the importance of courtesy and manners. I feel like sending Nick's cousin a card thanking them for the thank you card. When my kids get married, I am going to proof read their thank you notes before they are sent out!

Isabella found a couple hats from when Nicholas was a newborn, and was bound and determined to get them on her head. I give her credit, because she was able to do it all by herself, and it didn't look like an easy task!

Two for the Price of One

Finally Nicholas can sit up, so I can bathe both the little kids at the same time!

Very Fun Weekend with the Family

This weekend Jean and Omar (Aunt and Uncle) and Lori and Omar, Alex and Gabby (Cousin, wife and kids) came to visit us. We try to get together with them every year, and usually take turns with them traveling here or us in Maryland. The festivities began on Saturday at my parents house for a cookout, and swimming. Sunday, we went to the fair for some greasy, delicious food, and to see all the farm animals. Afterward, we went back to our house for more food. On Monday, we met at Penny and Dave's house for yet again more food and then all went to the ice cream shop for dessert where Taylor, Shea, Paige and Chloe shared a "Destroyer" which is a concoction of 9 scoops of ice cream and whatever toppings you like. They take your picture and post it on the wall. Surprisingly, they finished all but the melted soup at the bottom of the dish.

I love hanging out with my cousin and his wife and laugh almost the entire time we are together. My cousin's son who, is 2 1/2, managed to shut his fingers in the car door and fall head first into my parents pond. He was right there to scoop him out, but not able to avoid his wife finding out due to the pond scum and seaweed covering Alex's entire body. Gabby is 8 months old, and is one of the chubbiest babies I have ever seen. She was absolutely adorable! I never left her alone with Nicholas for fear of her eating my son as a small snack. All the little kids played so well together, and Isabella did a fantastic job of sharing her toys!

The next time we see everyone will be next summer in Hilton Head! I can't wait!