Ok, I have a little more time this morning. It is 1:30 in the morning and I am up working, but I have a little more time.I told you William had a new tooth. He has also started talking all the time. He doesn't say anything, but makes noises all the time. He likes saying bub bub bub and dad dad dad, or just makes noise all the time. he is alos trying to get moving all the time. He gets up on his knees and trys to move forward by kicking his legs. He can roll over by himself. He rolled off the bed the other day, so now we have to watch him all the time. He hasn't quite got the knack of sleeping all night, but he only wakes up once and then he wakes up for good around 5 in the morning.
He is still big, or big in comparison to Maeghan. He weighs 9 kilos and Maeghan only weighs 11, so he is catching up pretty quick. He had some more shots the other day. I don't know what these are for but it was his six month shots, I think. He goes to the doctor tomorrow, or today since it is so early in the morning. Just for a six month checkup. There is nothing wrong with him but he has to be checked to be eligible for healthcare.
Maeghan went to the doctor to be measured for new splints yesterday. She is not happy about it as she has not been wearing her old ones for a few days. It will take five weeks for them to make the new ones, so maybe she will have some more time when she doesn't have to wear them. Although, they did put some new padding and some new velcro on her old ones, so I suppose she is expected to wear them all the time.
She was unhappy yesterday so we bought her some new shoes. Actually, she had had an accident and made her shoes wet and she needed some more anyway, so we got her some black dress shoes. That made her really happy. She likes new shoes. She says she can run fast now. They are black with a velcro strap across them that has a purple butterfly on it. They are purple on the inside also. We told her that they were purple, one of her favorite colors. She held up her finger to us and said, I think they are black mommy. It was cute.
Speaking of cute, I have a list of a few things she has done that were really, really cute but have never written about them. These happened over the last few months but I wrote them down so I could pass them on.
Once, we were going somewhere, I forget where and we had just gotten in the car. She usually asks for her cup on water when we get in. She has a couple of cups with lids on them so she does not spill them. (I know I have heard of people who do not go anywhere without a cup of water but I just can't think of anyone who comes to mind immediately.) When we gave her her cup of water, she took a drink and told us it was not cold water. (She has to have cold water, another trait she seems to have gotten from someone in the family.) We told her we did not have any cold water and she was unhappy about it but didn't say anything else immediately.
About five minutes later, she had started singing songs. She knows about thirty different songs and she likes to sing them in the car. She was busy singing along when we heard her start one of her own made up songs. I don't know what the first part of the song was but her big finish was
I have my water
But I am not upset
Because my water is not cold
I know it does not really read very funny, but we thought it was hilarious. We started laughing all the way to where ever it was we were going. She had to keep asking us what was so funny but she did not understand when we said it was her.
After that, she started singing about everything that was going on in her life. That is her new thing to do, or it was, she hasn't done it in a while. She would make up songs about whatever was going on or whatever people were saying around her. You would be half listening to her and then hear her say something or sing something about what had happened several minutes ago. she really strings out the last words of her song and then looks at you and bows. If you start clapping, she will continue to bow and say thank you very much. Of course, that lets her know you are listening so she starts hamming it up and doing all kinds of things and then bowing when she is finished, like she has put on a great show. Which she has, but she seems to know that she can do anything and get applause for it.
Another thing she said the other day was when we were driving through the Entrance, that is a town near where we live. I think I have mentioned it before. It is where they feed the pelicans. Anyway, when you go across the bridge over the lake, you can see the ocean and the beach from there. She always wants to go to the beach so when we were going over the bridge, she said lets go to the beach. I didn't say anything but after we had crossed and were going down the road, she tried to get my attention. She said daddy, daddy and I said yes Maeghan, another game we play all the time but this time she had a question for me. She said, I was just wondering, does this car turn around. She wanted to turn around and go back to the beach. Again, this doesn't read as well as it sounded but I had to pull over I was laughing so much. It was so cute.
There are all sorts of things she says and does that are so cute. I guess she is like all other kids but she does keep us laughing and entertained all the time. She absolute loves to dance and sing. She does it all the time. And not just simple moving around dances but some really complicated dances where she will bend her knees and do the twist and rock back and forth and spin around and wave her arms and just generally dance to the music. Sometimes, she does not even need music to dance, she just makes up her own songs and dances to them.
A few times, when we took her dancing at the club, the dance floor was too crowded for her to do most of her dances, so I had forgotten how complicated and inspired some of her dances can be. But, the last time we went, there was no one on the dance floor and she really put on a show. She was spinning and jumping and waving her arms all around. She really was having a good time and maybe I am biased about it, but she is really good at it. She seems to actually dance to the music and not just move around while the music is playing. Her dances are coordinated to the music and while you can see some of the things she does she has copied from other people or been taught in class, but most of them are things she could not possibly have seen before and she is just making them up. And, sometimes, she will sing along with the song. I don't know if she has heard them before or not, but she seems to know the words to a lot of songs. Maybe she hears them in the car with her mother, but some of them are not played on the radio anymore and she still knows the words. She gets excited when a song comes on that she knows and can dance to. It is just a really fun and special thing to do when we take her to the club so she can dance. Yesterday, when we were going to my work and she was going to the doctor, we had to pass by the club on the way. She had just asked where we were going and I told her to my work. As we passed the club, she said there it is and kept saying pull in, pull in, you are passing it. It took a minute for me to realise what she was saying and when I pointed out to her that that was the club and not work, she said, 'yes it is' and I said 'no it isn't' so she said 'oh, but we could go to the club instead'. Another really cute thing to say and she knew it because she laughed when she said it.
In other news, I am doing fine. No problems, although my scar has started itching and sometimes hurting. Not a lot, but I am aware it is there all the time. I suppose it will go away eventually, but it has been a while and I might have to mention it to a doctor at some point.
Both Juanita and I are on diets again. We are trying to lose 50 kilos each, by Christmas. Not really possible but we have been on it for two weeks and hope to stay on it for the next year or so. We are in the new house and we only have to cook for ourselves, so it makes it easier. Maeghan is eating nothing but junk food all the time and we are trying to think of ways to sneak vegetables into her. She likes rice and I can usually hide things in the rice but we are not eating rice right now, so I have trouble making a small portion of rice just for her. We bought some pre-packaged rice dinners but she does not seem to like those so we have to find something else. We are not eating bread either but we have to keep some on hand because Maeghan likes toasted cheese sandwiches.
Michael and Natalie and Adam are living downstairs. We have to buy Michaels food but he is cooking it for himself. So far, it has not been too bad. Maeghan is always wanting to go downstairs. Even when we have dinner, she wants to go downstairs and she will tell us she is not hungry and doesn't want to eat just so she can go down there. We have to make her sit at the table and eat with us.
Michael is still going to school, sometimes. He is in the last semester of his senior year. I don't know what classed he takes or what he is required to do but he does seem to go most of the time. He has to ride the bus from here to his old school. According to him, the earliest bus does not make it to his school on time, so he misses first period. Apparently, the school has said that is ok. He had some work experience for a couple of weeks where he had to go to a shop and work each day instead of going to school.
Natalie and Adam pay rent to us, if you can call it that. It is not very much but we do not have to pay for their food anymore, nor cook it for them, so it seems to work out ok. Neither has looked for a job but they are applying for rent assistance so maybe they can pay a little more if they get it.
I got a new smoker. They have never sold the old smoker type I had in America over here in Australia. I have been looking for one for a long time. Finally, they have a small one for sale, at least they did. I have not seen them in stores lately so maybe no one bought them and they discontinued them. But I bought one. I bought it several months ago but Juanita said I had to wait until my birthday to take it out of the box and then we were moving so I decided to wait until after we moved to put it together. It is about half the size of my other one in America. It seems to be designed well as it has the smoke stack in the right place and it has several baffles to control the temperature. It even came with a thermometer with degress in Farenheight. It must be made in America but it is a local store brand.
You cannot get the right kind of charcoal over here, only cheap stuff that you should really not be cooking with. I am going to look for a good wood supply but you cannot get real cooking wood either. They do sell the right kind of charcoal at the place where I bought the smoker but it is really expensive for a very small bag that would not even last one cooking session. I did put some of the cheap charcoal in it to season it before I cook. The charcoal does not get to a very high temperature. I had to put some really wet wood in to get it up to cooking temperature and then it only went halfway. I assume when I get the right wood, it will get hotter, but I will have to wait and see. I did see that it was not sealed very well. It leaked smoke from several places where it should not. Mostly around the door, which you would expect, but a lot around the smoke stack where it joins the smoker. The fire box did not leak at all, which is good, but it seems to have sealed the baffles when it has heated up. I will have to take a hammer to it to make them move back into cooking position. I had them wide open when I was testing it. Maybe by this weekend, I will have it ready to cook something, although I have not really found anything I can smoke yet. They do not really have the right kind of ribs over here. They have what they call American style ribs, but they are really small and appear to have been cut down from the whole rib we get in America. I asked about a brisket and they said I could get one but I am not sure how long it will take nor how much it will cost. I will probably just smoke some of the small ribs but since we are on a diet, we cannot have the sauce so I do not know if I really want to do that. Maybe a chicken or something before I move on to real BBQ food.
Well, I suppose I should be going now. I have a meeting in an hour, so I need to get something to eat before then. I haven't really talked about everything that has happened since Christmas but since I have forgotten most of what I wanted to write about, I suppose it does not really matter. So, for now, this is all I have.
Talk to you soon
