Riley and Avery

So I suck. Haven't updated in a while. So sorry...and I haven't taken pictures in a while, so only pictures from Maryland right now. Like I said, I pretty much suck.


So I started school last week. Three in-class courses (all paralegal courses) and an accounting course online. Finding the time to do homework and complete the required reading is really not cool. Try taking reading notes with two little ones who always want to be in your lap and steal your pens. So I'm really really tired. And because my classes are over dinnertime, I don't think that I've been eating well enough. So that doesn't help. All of my professors are great, so at least that's good. One of my professors, who's also the head of the paralegal program, is very very animated. Almost crazy. At least it's entertaining. And scary sometimes. I wouldn't dare come to that class unprepared. No sir.

The girls have beee excellent for Rudi when I'm in school. Avery still cries a good deal when I leave, but calms down right away. Riley whimpers a little still, but is all-in-all the brave one. And the four hours that I'm gone go really smoothly. Really makes me feel wanted. At least I have the excited hugs and kisses to look forward to when I come home. And I also look forward to seeing what imaginitive (and incorrect) way Rudi has come up with to cloth diaper. I've given him so many tutorials and none of them have stuck. Once I came home and the diaper cover was on inside out and backwards, and the prefold was hanging over the top by about eight inches. Hmmm...

Riley starts school on Tuesday. She's been asking about it, and not in her normal crazy way, but like she's looking forward to it. They are having an open house on Labor Day, so I'll go with Riley. Good thing is that Rudi is off on Tuesday and my classes are out that day, so we can do something special as a family to celebrate Riley's first day of school. Don't know exactly what that would entail, but at least the idea's out there.

Avery is currently sick-ish. Her normal fever. Horray. So sleepless nights will be the norm for me for a while. Riley had the fever bug last week, so what's a few more nights without sleep? Who needs sleep? Avery gets feverish so much, with no other symptoms, that I don't even need a thermometer anymore. I'd say 102-103 degrees right now. Not too bad. The virus jumped right over me. What I wouldn't do for a sick day.

Avery is talking so much more lately. I was sitting down and she just came up to me and goes "hands, feet, eye, nose, face, ear, knees (her favorite), tummy (her other favorite), arms, mouth, back, butt, pants, shirt" pointing out all of my body parts and saying them. I didn't know she could say nearly half of them. Then I asked her if she wanted to nurse and she said "sleep, bed, nurse." Not really a sentence, but step-by-step instructions. Bossy thing. She patted Riley's bike seat today and said "sit butt". She really likes dressing herself, sans diaper. Perhaps I should get her a pair of undies or two. She seems to do okay without diapers or undies under her pants, so maybe that's the next logical step. Although she doesn't ask to go potty any more (and to be fair, I haven't put her there or suggested it) but always asks for a diaper when she has to pee. I don't want to be pushy, but it's going to get cold soon. Potty train now or never. Probably never, since I'm not all that motivated. Who am I kidding?

Waiting for pictures to upload...waiting...waiting...

Rudi has a doctors appointment tomorrow to see what is to be done with his gallstones. Hopefully not surgery. The doctors at the VA are like old sawbones. So behind on technology. Not that it's their fault, just lack o' funding.

So I'm finally making some progress in cleaning up the mess that greeted me when I came home from Maryland. Rudi insists that the place was clean when I came home, but I guess we have different standards. Just cleaning out a walkway does not constitute "clean" in my book. It's starting to look like a house again.

We walked up to 7-Eleven today and I let the girls each pick out a treat. Riley picked out M&Ms and Avery picked out a package of Oreos (slim pickins when you're allergic to everthing), and then we headed over to the Slurpee machines. While there, Avery saw the cold case where they had all the milk and sandwiches and such and saw a packege of Oscar Meyer bologna hanging there and she starts freaking out asking for bologna. So I tell her that if she gets bologna, she'll have to put her Oreos back. So she does. Everyone in the store was cracking up, Riley with her M&Ms (normal) and Avery with her bologna (abnormal).

So I finally finished the Harry Potter series several days ago. I read all seven books in a little over two weeks and now I'm suffering severe Harry Potter withdrawl. Rudi has graciously agreed to let me go to the movies Monday night to see the Order of the Phoenix. That'll be fun.

I start school on Tuesday and am really nervous about how Rudi will fare while I'm in class. Hopefully class will end early since it's the first one, and Rudi and the girls can ease into the routine more slowly. Rudi doesn't understand a single word that either of the girls say. Mostly, I think, from a lack of trying. I'm trying to impress upon him the importance of actually interacting with them, and distracting them from my absence, rather than sitting there watching TV for three hours. I just have a really bad feeling about it. He talks about establishing routines with the girls, and then blows them out of the water. He doesn't understand that if I go grocery shopping at 4pm and he lets the girls fall asleep, they're not going to go to bed at 8pm. He thinks that they should just go to bed anyway, or lay up there awake, just because it's eight. Argh!! No sense worrying about it now.

So we were outside playing with our balls (no chuckles, but we have a lot of balls) and a neighbor-lady wandered by with her two children and dog. Since the girls wanted to pet the dog, the mother and I spoke briefly. Her 4-year-old popped one of the big balls by hitting it with a stick. She also had a boy that just turned one. We didn't talk long before it started to rain, so we all went in. Then we had dinner and went back out after it had dried to play with our balls again and saw and ambulance and firetruck almost in front of our house. Apparently something was wrong with this lady's youngest boy. And all the neighborhood kids were standing around watching, as were some of the adults, and it was kind of embarassing to see people shamelessly rubber-necking this family. So I asked this woman if she needed someone to watch her 4 year old while she went to the hospital. So we had an extra kid for about three hours. I don't know how mothers of boys do it. Andrew was very polite, he preceeded everything he said with "Um, excuse me?" even to Riley. They played really well together. But anyway, I was so annoyed by the boy energy! Now, Riley is very on-the-go but it can be bridled and directed, but not the boy. Andrew said that his brother was in the bathroom and got a bug stuck in his throat. I'm not sure of the accuracy of this, but that's the story. He was crying and wheezing when they put him in the ambulance. Maybe we'll get the full story, or maybe not. I'm not the town gossip.