MWNews 37

I've been on vacation this week. Actually, I have been home this week, not really a vacation. I have noticed that as I am typing this, I cannot type. Seems I keep fat fingering everything and have to retype it. I suppose I will muddle through though.

William is sick, or, he has a little cold. Nothing major but it is his first cold and he is having trouble with coughing and sleeping. We have a little bit of medicine for him, but there is not much you can do for a little baby. We are going to take him to the doctor today, just as a precaution. Juanita is going to take him to the doctor. I have to stay here.

We ordered a new bed for Maeghan about a month ago. They told us it would be in in two weeks. It is now over a month later and still no bed. They keep telling us it will be on the next truck that comes in but it never is. A couple of days ago, they said it was on the truck but when the truck arrived, no bed. So, we went looking for another one.

We need it because Juanita's parents get here Saturday. We have enough beds, but to make sure, we were trying to get Maeghan one of those beds that is a bunk bed, with a single on top and a double bed on bottom. Juanita wanted to get two of them, one for Maeghan's room and one for Michael's, but we decided to only get the one. After ordering it from the one place and not getting it, we had to try to find a place that could get it to us this week. With Christmas being so close, most places said they could not deliver until after Christmas and the ones that said they could deliver wanted twice the price we had originally paid.

But, anyway, we did finally find a place that had one in stock. They said they could deliver the next day, which was yesterday, and they did. But, we still had the other one on order from the other place. We had to go up there and cancel that one but keep the mattresses as we got a good price on those. We got a good price on the whole thing but since they could not deliver, we had to bet the bedframe somewhere else.

They are delivering the mattresses today, hence the reason I have to stay home and wait. Naturally, we have no idea when they will deliver it. And, I have to go off on another tangent in discussing this store we are having trouble with. We have bought three things from then, now four with the bed, and they have never been able to deliver on time and in some cases, even deliver what it was we ordered. The store is called Fantistic Furniture. They sell really cheap funiture and really cheap prices. They also have good stuff but they are known for their 'package deals'. This means you can get a whole houseful of funiture, living room, bedroom, kitchen for some ridiculously low price. The funiture is usually cheap and shoddy and isn't really worth the money you pay for it, but I suppose if you are just starting out, then it is a good deal. They also sell regular funiture and that is what we go for.

I hate the place and think they are a shoddy outfit and we should not go there at anytime. They have lost our merchandise before and, one time, they called us two weeks after we had bought our dining room hutch and told us the one we had bought had been sold to someone else and we would have to come in and pick something else out. Now, once again, after I told Juanita that they never deliver on time, we have ordered from them and once again, they have failed to deliver. I am hoping that this time, Juanita sees that these people have no intention of doing anything they say they are going to do and are only looking to lure gullible people into their showrooms with cut-rate funiture at cut-rate prices. I just hope the mattresses they deliver are the ones we picked out as they are the same ones we saw at another place for about $500 dollars more.

Ok, enough with bagging on Fantastic Funiture. One of our lounges is from there, the one that fell apart, our kitchen hutch and living room TV cabinet, our bed and now our mattresses are from there, so it is not like we should not have been warned and I apparently did not do enough warning and fell for it again, but maybe this time it will sink in.

William is now on his way to the doctors. It has taken me about two hours to type this, so far. He went to the doctors yesterday, but that was only to get weighed and measured. He has gained 500g in two weeks, which is a lot. They expect him to gain 150g to 200g in that time. Apparenly, eating every two hours is adding up. Of course, with what we went through and still go through with Maeghan, we are happy he is gaining weight. Maeghan never gains weight, or she gains it very slowly. She still doesn't eat a lot but most of what she eats is junk food. French fries and sausage and noodles are her main foods. She will eat the occassional chicken nugget and she does eat a lot of lollies and icee poles. Not that you would know what those are, unless you are actually in Australia, but just think candy and popcicles. There are lots of times when you ask her what she wants for dinner, she will whisper to you 'icee pole'.

One of her favorite things to say right now is 'And that's not very nice'. She says it, usually, after she has told you something someone else has done. Like 'Jarvis did this' and then she will pause for a little bit and say her line, 'And that's not very nice'. Of course, she says it in that cute kid way of saying things that I cannot duplicate here in print but it is very funny when she does it and we always start laughing and then she will say stop laughing at me and once again say, 'That's not very nice'.

Maeghan loves to play with William now. she is always trying to give him cuddles and give him a kiss and she will spend lots of time telling us the baby is awake, even if the baby isn't. If we tell her that the baby is not awake, she will try to wake him and we have to tell her not to.

She has begun to be very naughty since William came home. Not that she does anything bad, she just tells us no all the time and tries to do everything she wants to do, even if we tell her not to. I don't know if it is just the age or she is jealous of the baby. She is still really good and does what you tell her to do, she is just learning to fold her arms up and tell you no most of the time now. She usually does what you say anyway but all the time she is telling you no and you are not very nice. Most of this takes place in the shopping centers. She likes to run around and not stay with us or actually, she says she is hiding or playing a game and tells us to hang on, she is not finished yet. The strange thing is she only does it when both Juanita and I are there. When we take her out on our own, she doesn't do any of that. Maybe it is bacause the baby is with us when we are together and she is just trying to keep out attention. It gets annoying having to constantly tell her to keep up all the time but she does not like to ride in the trolley and doesn't really like to ride in the pram anymore. She does still want Daddy to carry her around all the time, or when she is getting tired, but Daddy gets more tired than she does and that doesn't last very long.

Maeghan's program is this saturday. She had her last class on Monday and I am told she had her last playgroup this past wednesday. Now, she does not have anything to go to for two months and since the grandkids are leaving, she will not have any other kids to play with. I know how much she loves playing with the grandkids but they will not be around anymore and I am not sure what we are going to do about that. When she goes to playgroup and ballet, she does not really play with the other kids, she only follows them around and will sometimes play with the toys they are not playing with. She has no problem if they ask her to play, but that does not happen very often and she just kind of hangs back until she sees an opening. I know that is part of growing up but without the other kids here to visit and play with all the time, I think we need to get her involved in something else. She will eventually have William, but that will be a while and no kids like to play with their brothers and sisters all the time. We will find someway to get her involved with others. She has friends, or Juanita has friends who have kids her age, but they all live in Sydney and further and it is an hour to two hour drive to see them. I don't know of any local kids around us she could play with, they are all older than she is. I guess Daddy will have to keep her entertained all the time now. Although, Daddy has not been much fun lately and our play time together has not been as often as either of us would like. Eventually, I will get better and eventually, Maeghan will have to find some new friends but for now, we will do what we can.

I mentioned that the grandkids are leaving. Without going into too much detail, they are all moving to Brisbane sometime soon. Before Feburary, bu they are going to Brisbane this weekend to spend Christmas with their father. Since they are having to move by Feburary anyway, the kids may not come back and only Angela will come back to pack her things. We don't know that for sure, but it might turn out to be the case. In any event, they are all leaving.

Natalie and Adam are suppossed to be moving down here. They will be here for Christmas and who knows how long after that. They are going to stay in Angela's place until Feburary and then I have no idea where they will go. I suppose we will have to wait and see. Juanita's parents are suppossed to be here for that long, but I don't know when they are planning on returning to Tassie. Feburary is when the airline tickets change, so they will probably wait until then.

We have all our Christmas shopping done. Now we are just working on wrapping everything. Juanita tells me I have to put all Maeghan's toys together on Christmas eve so she can have them on Christmas morning. I am not so sure about that plan. We bought her a big wooden kitchen that has to be put together. If I put it together by the Christmas tree, then I will have to take it apart to move it to where it will eventually go, in the rumpus room. It can't go outside as it is made of wook and will warp if it gets wet, but it is fairly large and will take up quite a bit of room in there. She also has a big drawing board that has to be put together and I think there are several other little things I have to do. I am just wondering who would have done this if I had been in the hospital during Christmas and if we can find that person, can they do it on Christmas eve.

Since none of the grandkids are going to be here, it will not be as big a Christmas as we had last year. I see no way they can take all their presents with them to Brisbane, but Juanita says they are planning on doing that. Since there are four of them, that is a lot of presents to be taking with them on the train. And, it is a lot of presents to be taking out from under our tree. It will look kind of bare under there without them. I guess they can always buy me another pair of socks to make up for one of the presents missing from under the tree. Juanita told me that all my presents were already wrapped and under the tree but there are not enough presents under there to be all my presents. They would have to be giving me everything under the tree if all mine are already there. And, there are no big ones there, so I am sure this cannot be it and they are just saving the big ones for later.

Juanita and William and Maeghan have just gotten back from the doctors. He said William was alright and just to keep an eye on his cough. I suppose that means I have typed enough for a while. Like always, there is always a lot of stuff that I want to write about what Maeghan and William have done but as soon as I start writing, I forget about it. And, Maeghan wants noodles, so I have to get up and fix them for her. As far as my health, we have not heard anything new. I will not know until January about when my operation will be so we just keep waiting. I go back to work next week, so I will have more time to write. I like to write from work so I get paid for it. The only problem with that is I do not have all my pictures on the work pc, so I cannot use anything new. By the way, I post new pictures to the Kodak site everyonce and a while. I don't think it tells you that, so I usually republish the entire folder but I might re-arrange them all so that you can more easily tell what you have already seen.

Anyway, I will talk to you later.