Hard to believe it has been twenty years since my last post. You would think I would have found the time at some point. Well, it has been an eventfull time. Not that I can actually include all the goings on in this one post, but I can give where the kids are now and what they are up to, although, at any given moment, it is hard to keep track of what they are doing.
I don't have any recent photos on my work computer to upload here, and since my home computer is currently without an internect connection other than dialup, we have to use pictures that are on this computer. This is an oldie but a goodie. Probably used it already in the past, but who really knows. Certainly not me. I am old.
Mostly, we have kids who are 5 and 1/2 and almost 3. Maeghan goes to school, kindy, and she loves it. She just had her annual play and I did not get one decent picture of any of it. I was in the middle of the room, and the camera I was using would not focus on the screen. I kept focusing on the people in front of me, so all the pictures are out of focus for Maeghan. I have some small movies from the camera, but I am not sure I can pull any of the frames out of that to save. They are better as I can manually focus those, but the others, I did not know how to turn off auto-focus, so don't expect any pictures of that anytime soon.
William, on the other hand, is still a real terror. I have repeatedly mentioned how often he gets into trouble because he is constantly on the move, but he does not seem to be slacking off any. Since he is bigger now, and can speak almost to the point that you understand everything he is saying, he has the capacity to get into even more trouble. And he does. Always gettting into something, always doing something he is not suppossed to do and always talking and asking questons about what he can and cannot do.
I say asking questions, but most of the time, that is not really his style. He has developed the habit of whenever he wants something or when he has a question, he screams very loudly for mom or dad. He keeps yelling our name until one of us answers him, then he will quietly ask us whatever it is that is interested in the moment.
And forget about waiting him out until he decides to come to wherever you are and ask quietly. Hhe just stays where he is and yells more and more frequently until you answer him. It would not be that much of a problem except he seems to want things after he, and everyone else, have gone to bed each night. Sometime after you have laid down and are about to go to sleep, you here him yell at the top of his voice, and he has a very loud top, for either mommy or dad to come give him a drink, or ask if he can sleep with us, or any number of little things that he has no need for. One of the favorites, beside asking for a bottle which he does not get anymore, is to call you into his room to tell you that he has dropped his cars and wants you to find them for him.
You see, he has to have a car in each hand most of the time now. Actually, since his hands are bigger, he has to have two cars in one hand at any given time so he can play with them at a moments notice. He carries them around with him everywhere and since everyone notices this, he is always getting new little cars for him to carry. We have a five gallon bucket full of little hot wheels and other little cars that we try to keep hidden most of the time because anytime he sees it, he sits down and takes every one of the cars out of the bucket and then sorts through them until he finds his favorites. Since his favorite changes a lot, you cannot keep any one or two cars out and hope he decides to play with them. No, he has to look through them all until he decides.
And you would think that would not be so bad, but if he has been yelled at or gotten into trouble for anything, his first thought is to pull all those cars out and throw them in all directions until he finds the one he wants. I am sure he does that to get attention and point out the fact that you have upset him by yelling at him, but he has caused some problems when he hits someone or something else in his tantrum. But that does not happen all that often so you generally do not find out that he is doing it until you walk over a few dozen cars as you enter the room.
Lately, his thing is to go into his bed and sulk as this has been the punishment of late for when he does something really wrong. Now, if you yell at him or say anything harsh to him, he will go into his room and crawl under his pillow and blanket until you notice that he is upset. It works. You just feel sorry for him when he does it and he gets to come out and have everthing ok. Until he repeats whatever it was he got into trouble for in the first place. And it is not as if he forgets that he got into trouble for it. If you watch him, he will look to see if you are watching and even if you are, he will do it anyway and then stare at you as if to say, 'am I going to get in trouble again and you wouldn't dare punish me again for it'. As they say over here, he is a cheeky little bugger.
Maeghan, on the other hand, has decided she knows what is best at all times. She will tell you what you should do for any situation and will let you know that what she is doing and why at all times. She is still the cutest thing there ever was but I think this little attitude she is developing is going to be a problem as she just becomes cuter and cuter.
And, she is cute, there is no getting around that. Still the smallest one around and still getting noticed by everyone that walks past or hears her talk. People are till amazed that this little tiny girl is so talkative and so articulate. She is so tiny, they just do not expect her to be five years old and walking and talking and being so smart. They are just suprised everytime she meets anyone new and even those that have known her forever are still amazed at how smart she is.
Everyone at her school knows her. When we pick her up or drop her off, everyone, and I mean everyone, says hi Maeghan as we walk past. She ignores them but still, the next day, the same people say hi to her. There are a few that she replies to, but mostly, she just keeps walking. She says everyone is always talking to her and wanting to play with her and she just wants to play with her friends. If she encourages anyone, they will follow her around and want her to play all the time. You would think she would love the attention, and I guess she does, but she has apparently gotten tired of it all the time and is slightly embarrassed by it. Even kids that have no idea who she is or have just seen her, come up to her and try to play with her. Mostly small children who cannot talk or are just babies, will pull on her arms or try to hug her. She is bothered by that, but they still do it. I guess it is because they see her as being the same size as them and they think she will want to play. I can see where that can be really annoying to her. She has mentioned in the past that there are little kids that will not leave her alone and does not want to go places where they might be. She hides behind me when she sees these kids and tries to have me pick her up so they will not bother her.
Maeghan has not been to the doctor lately. We apparenly missed her last appointment, but since they only happen once a year now, we forgot about the last one. I put them in my phone to remind me, but apparently, I had a different phone when last we made and appointment, so they had to call us and reschedule. I think it is for next week. She will go for an annual checkup to see if she is making progress like she should.
There are a lot of things she still cannot do, like run normally or fast. She tries but she just cannot generate the leg movement or strength to get herself into a real run. She does say now that she is the slowest runner in the world. I am not sure if she is upset by this or she just says that, but I am hoping she is really ok with it. Not that there is a lot to be done about it, but I don't think she feels sorry for herself or anything. She just states it as a fact.
And she loves atheletics. She wants to play everything. She got tired of baseball, she said it was boring, but now she does her dance and she does gymnastics and she wants to try everything. She wants to play soccer but I think she realises that she cannot keep up with or kick the ball very far, so she does not try to play with the other kids, but I think she wants to. She loves it when we go to the park and play with the balls.
We have moved, probably a couple of times since the last post and now live in what is called Wadalba. Not that far from where we have been living, on the central coast, but in a relatively new housing developement. Hence my problem with an internet connection. It seems there is broadband in my area, but they have either run out of ports or the lines they have installed are not suitable for DSL. I have no idea why a new area would install lines that are not capable of DSL, but this is Australia, where DSL speed is considered a fast internet connection. At some point, and they have not said when, they might add some ports so they could then check if my line is capable but that may or may not happen anytime soon, so I am stuck using dialup until that time. As there is no other option for an internet carrier, I am not hopeful that the problem will be resolved while we live in this house. After a year, if it is not fixed, we will be moving again.
Some of you might have noticed that we have moved every year since we came to Sydney and that is true. Always, it has been for some reason or another, but in the end, we need to find a place we can be happy with. So far, there has always been a problem with every place we have lived and so, after a year when our lease is up, we have moved. And I doubt if this current place will last longer than a year. No heat, which will probably mean no air-conditioning in the summer, no internet and the power blows anytime you have the dryer running and anything else running in the house. Long story to explain the wiring connections in the house, but depending on which side of the house you plug something into, you have to make sure that you turn something else off on the same circuit before you turn it on. A major pain and not something I think they can fix. So expect to hear that we are moving again in the next year.
I suppose I should get back to work now. Always have lots to do and have done none of it. I have to leave a bit early to pick up William so Juanita can take Maeghan to ballet after school. (You cannot take William to ballet, ever) I am sure there is a lot to say and a lot to relate. Sometime in the next year, I will get back to this blog. I have been thinking about posting for a while, but never seem to get to it. I only did this now because I found out someone actually read this and found me here in Australia because of it. Thanks Mike. You actually get a mention in the blog for that. Of course, you will probably never read this again so will never know about the mention, but as I have said all along, I started this really so the kids could have something in twenty years that tell them of the life and times and my impressions of them way back when.
I will sign off now. Its been fun typing all this again. I think I missed doing this. Most people who might have read this in the past have long since dropped off and will not know I am back, but maybe someday, someone will check and see there are new posts.
Until next time,
Talk to you later
