Our "TERRIFIC KID"

This time change has definitely thrown us for a loop. While it is proving easier to get the kids to bed quicker because it’s darker earlier, I didn’t take into account the other side … the getting up an hour earlier as well! So, Hunter has taken full advantage of the situation and gets up at 5:30 every morning. He’s pretty funny about it, too. You hear his crib creaking next door and sure enough, a couple seconds you brace yourself for, no, not a cry or scream, just a simple, “Dad!” or “Mom!” (for whomever he’s having a hankering for at the moment.) He’ll even give you a couple of minutes to get your senses together before he starts getting perturbed and upping the volume a bit more. Of course, it’s then not just a case of bringing him in to bed with you and going back to sleep. He gathers whatever toys from his crib (he sleeps with two dolls and their blankets, a dinosaur, an elephant, and a bird) … his next line is always, “downstaurs?” … actually, it’s more of a demand than it is a question.

While we are on Hunter, just a few things out of the ‘ordinary’ with him for the week. He’s still in the mode of throwing anything he can get his hands on. He’s also got quite the creative and intuitive mind. If he can’t reaching something, he learned early on that a chair will do wonders. And then if the chair doesn’t get you high enough, you just find a stick somewhere (one of Collin’s lightsabers, aka golf clubs usually does the trick.) Whack it a few times and voila!, there you go, whatever it is you are after … plus a few other minor things. But who’s counting? The funny thing is that he knows what he’s doing is going to get him in trouble and he’ll often go punish himself by sitting on the stairs. Of course, as soon as he gets on (and he’s learned this from his two older siblings) he’ll let out, “Can I get down now?” To which we’ll say yes and he’ll keep repeating if he can get down now until he’s ready to get down. All on his own time :) But, you can’t help but love the little scrunch bean and his happier moments.

Collin can’t wait to get back to America. A lot of things that the kids keep asking for (roller skates, dog, etc.) we just use the excuse, “When we get back to America.” I don’t know how good their memory is but we might be in trouble if they remember everything we’ve used that line on. One thing he’s stuck in right now is ping pong. We played it a few times at the church and his uncle Chris showed him his ping pong paddle over webcam. Since we used the ‘wait till America’ line, he decided to take matters into his own hands and had me draw a picture of a ping pong set. We then cut it out and after it was all cut out, he seemed a little confused at what to do next. He figured that if he could just draw a picture then everything would work itself out. He had Kelli make him a paper guitar last week, as well. I think he’s been watching too much “Little Einsteins”. We did the same thing with a footy tonight. He did a cut-out of a footy and then played footy around the house. He’s decided that he wants to play footy when we get back to the States. We told him that they don’t have it back home and soccer might have to do for a bit :) He’s ok with that. Speaking of which, Hunter has a nasty left foot.

Savannah has been the princess of the week. At school we found out that at the whole school assembly she was awarded with something called the ‘Terrific Kid Award.” It’s a big deal, sponsored by the Kiwanis Club and everything, and given out once a term. Apparently they have the students in each class vote for their peers to select someone who they think is a terrific kid. Savannah was voted the terrific kid (girl) from her class of about 25! Brings tears to a parents eyes, sniff, sniff. We also had a new experience as parents. Our first child just lost her first tooth. It happened pretty darn quick, too. One day it started wiggling and then the very next she comes home with the same tooth in a little pouch. The tooth fairy made a special visit and must have known that she valued the tooth at around $1 (the tooth fairy increased it slightly to $1.10 – something with the exchange rate between here and America these days :) She also got a meat pie and chocolate milk from one of her friend’s Mom. You can’t buy the meat pies at school any more because the schools have decided they are making the kids obese (of course, you can buy pizza still, but whatever.) Meat pies are the Aussie food Savannah loves most and she used to order one every Friday from the canteen if she had behaved well that week at home. It was so easy to say, “Do you want a meat pie this week?” when she was acting up. It doesn’t seem to work so well with, “Do you want a half a hot dog this week?” It might make her think, but doesn’t get the instant results.

Hunter, by the way, downed 2 hot dogs (or Aussie sausages) by himself at dinner tonight. The kid is a tank. Not sure where he gets his appetite from, but it’s ferocious.

Kelli and I are busy getting the house ready for inspection and prospective tenants to look through. We’ve pretty much finished the big stuff outside and are now working to tidy things up on the inside. The agent for the home is still giving us a hard time about breaking our lease and doesn’t want to let us use the military clause that is in our contract because we are getting out of the military and not moving to another assignment. When she found out that we’d be moving before our lease was up regardless of whether we were getting out or not it seemed to appease her a bit. We’ll see what she does with the bond money, though.

Other than that we are relaxing without church callings to take a lot of our time now. I don’t think we realized how much time and effort went into the callings until we didn’t have them anymore and now wonder how to occupy our Sundays and such --- of course, there is the house work to take care of that little ‘problem’.

The job search is more or less over. I’ve got to be cleared through the legal details of moving from the government to contractor side, but once that’s complete it should all be smooth sailing … which will be a huge relief to have done and over.

Well, we’ll leave you with that for now. Till next week!