The Lowdown

Gosh! So it’s been a long time huh?

Nothing exciting, nothing tragic, nothing positive, nothing negative. Just living life.

The last month has been one sickness after another for me, for Salem, for Ian, for Scott. If our track records continue, Salem will be next, but I am praying against it. Literally, it has just been one thing after another.

I really need to vent. About a lot of things. It’s better living here, than with my mom and brothers, but there are things that I will never be ok with here. Like that on the weekends, my father in law cooks non stop, way more food than we can all eat, and so there is an abundance of left overs, and we are expected to eat them, and if we don’t, there is guilt. So I don’t cook dinner, and I miss making meals other than breakfast and lunch for my family. Also, we like to go out to eat on the weekends, and we get guilted for that too. He cooked like this before we moved in anyway, so its not for us. And seriously, I can only eat the same thing for so many days in a row, you know? He also calls Ian fat. I hate it. He used to say the same to Salem, but now she is so skinny, all of her pants fall off of her so he can’t. I turn on the porch light so that when we come home we aren’t trying to unlock the door in the dark, but he turns that off almost as soon as we turn it on. The toilets are ridiculous here. I seriously plunge the toiler a minimum of twice a day.

And so here is the big one I stewed over for a few days. Last week, Salem was being extra picky about what she wanted for dinner, so I let her tell me what she wanted and I made adjustments accordingly. We ended up with 2 hard boiled eggs, whole grain gold fish crackers, half off a banana, pomegranate seeds, and a glass of milk. Not traditional, yes, but unhealthy? I don’t think so. And as her mother I have that right to decide that. Father in law came home while she was eating and said hello to the kids like he does every night, and started criticizing her meal and saying how it wasn’t dinner and that there were all these other things in the kitchen that she could have been eating. Right. But here’s the thing. He buys so much food, that the whole kitchen is taken up with, leaving me no room to put any room to buy things that my 6 year old will eat. I was mad. Really mad.

But…. he’s awesome and I seriously couldn’t ask for a better FIL. Honestly. It’s just living under his roof that is getting to me. And Scott. I hate that weekend mornings, that used to be my time, no longer are because I don’t have anywhere to hide. That I miss the most.

We got a new puppy. Salem asked for one for Christmas for months, and we really thought about it, and thought about it. And we decided on a Boston Terrier. She didn’t get him for Christmas, we just got him this past Tuesday. We named him Banx. He’s 8 weeks old, and seriously perfect. We wanted something small for the kids, but something that wasn’t yappy, and was great with kids since most small dogs aren’t. Boston Terriers fit the mold exactly to our wants. And so far we love him, and he seems to love us.

Salem lost her first tooth. It took forever. I don’t know if I wrote about it or not, but her two bottom permanent teeth were growing in without the baby teeth falling out yet. One broke through just before Christmas. Finally the baby tooth came out last Monday. Now we just have to work on the other one, and it looks like the same thing is starting to happen with her two middle upper teeth as well. Yikes!

We went to church today for the first time in forever, and in addition to that, Ian went into the nursery for the first time since he has been alive and did great. He didn’t even look back when we dropped him off and our buzzer never went off when we were in service. And it was so nice! That right there is motivation enough to keep going. When we picked him up the girls asked, "Are you sure he has never been to nursery anywhere?" because he was so good. They raved about him!

Alright, back to doing something. I must start writing again!