Look at the big brain on Jill!
I’ve tried to write tonight’s post on 3 different occasions, but had some major writers block. My friend Dan told me recently that it sounds like I’ve been pushing Jell-o up hill. I’ll be honest, he’s right. As an example, a few nights ago, I went upstairs for Meredith on 3 different occasions and once with the dog because she needed to go out to pee. Guess who wanted to play in the yard at 3:30 in the morning? Not me. As I was trying to get out the door for work that morning, Angela let me know that the dog threw up on the floor in our bedroom right next to the bed. Argh!!!
Not every day is horrible, though. We had a great moment tonight. From time to time if we need to occupy the kids before their final feeding of the night, we blow bubbles. Kinda gay, huh? I blow bubbles. Anyway, those bubbles will keep the kids happy for 30 minutes or so. We gave Meredith a spill proof bubble container for Easter so we blow bubble in the house and everyone has a great time. Tonight Meredith insisted that she do it herself. She’s really trying to be independent with everything she does. She took the plastic stick, placed it right to her lips, but couldn’t get a bubble. As she took the stick away from her mouth, she exhaled. A big giant bubble appeared around her lips. That image was worth a million bucks and gave mom and dad a very much deserved laugh. We needed it.
The kids are all doing really well. They’re a bit behind developmentally, but that’s to be expected and we’re not really surprised or too concerned at this point. They’re not crawling yet, but can get to something if they want it bad enough. Madeline loves to walk around the house with assistance. Many, but not all of them, are babbling; lots of da, da, da, da, da’s. Alex is clapping. Emma and Madeline each have two teeth. The others do not have any. We are still going with scheduled feedings, four of them per day. During three of the feedings, the kids are getting baby food about an hour prior to their bottle. Oh Dear Lord, how the kids are eating the baby food. We go through about a case of food per day. There are 16 packages of food in a case. We expect that to only increase with time. We’ve talked about making food, but with Angela’s bum leg, that’s out of the question for now. This past weekend, we ordered 39 cases of baby food from Wal-Mart. We hope that this order will get us through a month. We’ll likely switch the kids to whole milk in the next month or two so their food intake will need to increase. Angela joked today when they were choking down peas that they need to get better at eating their food or we won’t be giving them any of their birthday cake.
Yeah, she referenced a birthday party. Do you believe that in less than 2 months, the kids will be a year old? Angela and I have finally made some decisions on their birthday and we’ll be announcing that to everyone very soon. We have a few more details to work out first.
Not much else to talk about other than a little story about our friend Jill Lubich and her big brain. For those who do not visit our home, we have a split level home. The upstairs is devoted to “baby land.” At the top of the steps is a very sturdy baby gate. It has a latch on it that some may describe as “challenging.” Others may describe it as a pain in the ass. I would go so far to say I think one or two of the women who come here may have lost their religion trying to get that thing open. Some don’t even try any more, they just ask for help or just step over it. I’ve seen my father do that too. So last week, I decided to fix it. I took the cover off the latch and ultimately the entire thing came apart. I gave it a little squirt of WD40, got it put back together but I couldn’t get it to work. Son of a B—-! Meredith was starting to need my attention so I rigged up the gate with a bungee cord until I could come back to it. Later that week, Bud Ayres, one of our volunteers, saw the cord prior to entering and asked Angela what woman shot it. She got a laugh. So this past weekend Jill Lubich walked in, saw the parts lying on the counter, looked up, and asked, “A puzzle?” It didn’t take long for Jill to have that thing together. She was able to point out my mistake. I had a piece turned upside down. Wow, look at the big brain on Jill! Seriously, that was it, a piece was turned upside down. So here you go…mark it down, I messed up and a woman fixed my mess. It was still difficult to open, so I had to do a little rigging with some parts from my fish tank and some epoxy. That thing is smooth now; probably easier to open now than the day I originally installed it. Thank you Jill for helping me fix our gate.
That’s it for now. I’ll try to get some photos and videos updated this weekend.
Until then…
And I’ve been wondering what you did to quiet down that d***n fish tank that sounded like an out board motor at 3:00 in the morning LOL Thanks Jill if that is what the impetus was to Heath needing fish tank parts.