MWNews 45

Not a lot happened in the last two days. William started walking and Maeghan cooks her own dinner, but they both remain humble about it and do not try to lord it over anyone.

Actually, William cannot walk yet. He has discovered that he can crawl around and get into things now. In the past, he would either roll around or call out to someone to pick him up. Now, since he learned how to crawl on our vacation, he can get into just about anything he wants.

He has found Maeghan's old castle/play thing. This is the toy I talked about a long time ago when she was in the hospital and there was this toy/castle thing she really liked and we were looking for one for her. Of course, you remember that. But, even if you do not, we still have it here and Maeghan still likes to sit in it and play. William has found out how to get in and out of it.

It has a little arch on one side and a door on the other. He can crawl through the arch or even open the door and let himself in. Now, anytime you put him on the floor, that is where he heads. He crawls inside and plays with any toys that are in there. It is just big enough for him to stretch out across it without touching any side and he will spin himself around in there and play with each little section. Each side of it has a different toy on it, from a little mirror to things you can bend and play with. He is quite happy to lay in there and play with each thing or play with any balls that are in there with him. He will roll to one side of it so he can open the door and look out at me sitting at my computer. He likes to do that and then laughs when I see him doing it.

He and Maeghan get along great. He still thinks Maeghan is the greatest thing ever. It does not matter where she is or what he is doing, if Maeghan makes a noise or walks into the room, he stops and stares at her and if she acknowledges him in anyway, he starts laughing his little laugh. Now that he has teeth on both the top and bottom, his smile is really cute. I have some pictures of it that I will be sending, but for now, he is still the cute little baby. A lot more noisy than Maeghan ever was, but only when he wants something, like food or a toy or to be picked up or anytime he feels he is not getting the attention he deserves. He is loud and insistant when that happens.

He will still not sleep the night in his own bed. He has gotten used to sleeping with Mommy while she was in Brisbane and now wakes up sometime in the night so he can be brought into bed with her. I think he might go back to sleep like he used to if I take him out and feed him until he falls asleep, but lately, I have had to work during the night, so I do not have the time to do that.

Ok, I have mentioned work and I have mentioned vacation, and I have even mentioned Brisbane, all of which have different stories to tell, but I probably only have time for one or two of them, so the question is, which one. I suppose it will have to be vacation as we had a wonderful time, for most of it, and I am sure since we cannot show you all the pictures, there are over two hundred of them, I can at least tell you everything we did. Kind of like a slide show with words. The best part is you cannot skip ahead as I might say something really interesting at anytime and you cannot afford to miss anything as the interesting parts are so few and far between. It is always good to have a captive audience.

Let's see, I told you about some of the trip up there. We spent three days in Airlie Beach/Whitsundays/Great Barrier Reef. I would like to say the food was really good there, but we did not eat at anything that served really good food and we ate at a couple of places that were bad. So, talking about food is out of the question.

The first day we were there, they had a nice little market along the beach. It was interesting because it was not the usual stuff you see at these types of things. A lot of it was the same, but it did not repeat itself over and over again, where every third stall sold the same things as the previous ones. This one had a lot of unique stuff. We did, however, disturb some couple in a van when we parked, but that is another story.

The last picture, from the previous post, was of the beach at Airlie Beach. It was vey nice, with the pathway and market just along the trees you can see along the beach. The shops and restaurants are just beyond that. They also have a little inland pool around there that Maeghan swam in. I have a picure of William there on the grass when we was first trying to crawl. Not that you can see it in the picture, but he was up on his hands and knees and was rocking back and forth trying to get going. He has since leared how to do this, but back then, it was his first time.

All the islands and water were very pretty around there. Again, I have some pictures I can send, but they do not have anyone in them and if I am not there to explain what you are looking at, they kind of lose their appeal. We can move on from there, but I might go back to it every once and a while.

William is nearly impossible to hold now. He is always in motion trying to grap things and look around for something new to look at or grab. He weighs 11 kilos and is really strong, so you cannot do anything but try to maintain your grip on him when you are holding him. He will just not stay still for any length of time. You end up having to put him down just so he will stop squirming. Juanita was just now complaining about him getting into everything here at the computers, so she put him on the floor. He is under my chair now, so I cannot move until he moves away.

On the way back from Airlie Beach, we tried to visit some of the places we drove past on the way up. There are several little tourist towns along the way and we spent several hours each day looking at stuff. We took our time coming back, not only because we wanted to see everything we could but because we were not in a hurry to get back to stay with Angela. That is who we stayed with while we were in Brisbane and suffice it to say, it was not the most pleasant environment. With all the kids and all the constant fighting and complaining, it was hard to just relax. And the kids were making noise too. Maeghan loved it. She loved playing with Jarvis all the time and he seemed to like playing with her. Anna is a little too big for Maeghan and the other kids are her siz but they are too young for her to play with yet. Shayla, Angela's youngest, is a real bully. She has leared to hit and push and be obnoxious with anyone her size and Maeghan is not used to that at all. So Maeghan lived in terror anytime Shayla was around. But Maeghan loved playing with all the kids all the time. She picked up a couple of bad habits, like shrieking and crying whenever she does not get her way, but I think she is already over most of that since we have returned.

William enjoyed watching all the kids all the time. He would just sit and watch them perform for him. He liked to get on the floor and roll around with them, but they there were too many small toys and things there to do it without someone supervising him. Plus, he was sick for most of the trip, as we all were, so he would get really miserable at times. He got so bad one day, before we left Brisbane on our drive, that we took him to the hospital. That is where you go when you do not have a local doctor. The doctors there just said to keep giving him panadol and if he got really worse, to give him anitbiotics, but they said the antibiotics would probably not work and would probably make him worse, so we never go around to getting the prescription. He was getting better by the time we started the drive, so it was not too bad.

Maeghan and I were sick with colds for most of the trip. We are still getting over it, but Juanita did not get sick until the last day and is still pretty bad now. It is ok during the day, but starts to hit you at night and before you go to bed. I got so bad, and so has Juanita, that I could not really speak at night or in the morning. And the cough that goes along with it was hard on Maeghan and all of us. Juanita still has it, but we are all doing ok now.

I guess more of the trip news and the other stuff I was going to talk about will have to wait. Juanita is waiting for me to take a shower so we can go do the shopping. It is Thursday and we always do the shopping on Thursdays. As soon as I get through with my meetings normally, but this morning I had meetings from 2 in the morning until about 9, so she has had to wait extra long while I typed this. William has started to get cranky and I have no idea where Maeghan is, so I suppose I have to go.

As you can see, I am trying to type more often, but as this is only two times, it hardly presents a trend. Maybe it will be, mostly because I have a lot of pictures I want to put in here, but if not, I can always email the pictures. I am sure you will enjoy them.

Until next time, talk to you later.