March 18th - March 21st: The Packout

Tuesday, March 18th: The packers arrived bright and early this morning to pack up all our UAB and HHE articles. The UAB packer kept insisting that we had too many items set aside but when it came down to it, we’d had half of our allotment and were searching around for other items to put in the boxes to reach our maximum shipping weight.



It’s a little odd having perfect strangers packing up all your belongings and oftentimes I wonder how much is junk and how much we’ll really miss. How little can we really live with? Probably very little. Sure, some has nostalgic value, but really how much do we –need-?
It was actually a pretty quiet day. We popped into the house from time to time because the weather was so nice we just stayed outside and let them do their work. Thank goodness for the warmth. The kids spent their time playing freeze tag, crawling around under the front porch looking for giant mice and raking leaves because I told them I’d pay them a dollar if they made as big a pile as mine. Bribery? Oh yes.
One time when checking in on the UAB packer, we started chatting about the kids. What an uncomfortable discussion that was. She asked if we only had the 4, then proceeded to tell me that she had 5 kids but one died when he was 6 months old and the other was decapitated in a car crash. Yes, it was that brusque, straightforward and sudden into the conversation. Now tell me, who needs that sort of information and who gives it out so readily and in such detail? I avoided that room for the rest of the day.
Our air shipment, all 5 boxes, were loaded onto the truck and we headed over to the hotel. Embassy Suites in Crystal City is an OK hotel, honestly the best part is the breakfast in the morning but that’s kind of sad for a $200/night place. We walked down to Pentagon City mall for dinner at the American Café then back to the hotel to crash. The girls were able to share the sofa bed with Nicholas in the extra double and Jonathon in a crib. The girls did not sleep well as they rolled and kicked and complained at each other for bothering the other. Maybe tomorrow night we’ll shift folks around.
Wednesday, March 19th: Not even any time for the yummy breakfast we passed downstairs, we grabbed some fruit and headed to the house to be there by 8 a.m. and picked up some McDonald’s breakfast on the way. Yum. Not. But the pancakes were worth it for Jonathon. Have I mentioned lately how picky he is? It’s a rare day that he’ll eat any vegetable or meat, so we offer him lots of fruit and grains, but it’s not helping with his anemia at all.
The loaders arrived and were done by noon. Bye bye stuff. All that’s left in the house is our furniture and some leftover bits to head to storage. A short morning and we headed back to the hotel so that Ian could go to Main State to check out. Jonathon napped and when Ian returned we went to the swimming pool. Nicholas can swim! With floaties, it didn’t take him long to be off on his own paddling through the water yelling “Me ‘wim!” Katherine is doing really well with actual swimming and is practicing taking a breath without stopping dead in the water. And Rebecca, well, she’s Rebecca and stuck to the wall. There were periods where she’d venture into the water and paddle a bit. I’m hoping in Manila she’ll get over this hesitation and just go with it. Jonathon really enjoyed the swimming as well and he thought the hot tub was pretty neat. That was my favorite part, but I have to admit being pleased that the pool was heated and easy to get used to. After about an hour, we went to dinner at Chili’s. OK, I admit we’re hitting all the local American fare spots with real American food. It’s obvious isn’t it? While Manila has restaurants like Pizza Hut, I don’t expect them to be quite the same.
Dinner went fine until Jonathon made an uncomfortable noise and I noticed he was covered. He had thrown up. Oh no. I cleaned him up as best I could, wrapped him in my sweatshirt and Ian went to bring the car up to get us. Oh please let this be a fluke, that he drank too much pool water or something. Ugh.
Thursday, March 20th: The last day of packing! And by noon, everything was gone out of the house. Amazing. It’s totally empty. And oddly enough I think I like the house even more now that it’s empty. Color me odd, but it’s just so neat and clean. This was the best group of packers of the three. Nice, helpful, good to the kids and thank goodness because the weather turned bad and all the kids had to stay inside and out of the way of the big burly guys stomping around. Tomorrow we have the cleaners come through for the chimney, the bathrooms/kitchen and the carpet. I hope the tenants like the house. They rented without seeing as they’re coming in from Puerto Rico with their 2 boys and 3 little dogs.
We headed over to Landmark Shopping Center and while we outfitted the van with 2 new front tires, we had some lunch at the mall, then avoided the rain as best we could… ok, Ian went through the rain to get the car so we stayed pretty dry. Jonathon still isn’t feeling well but he seems to be doing better. My parents have planned to take all 4 kids tonight so we can get a night out before our departure and we’ve scheduled to meet up with Jeff and his friends Pete&Eden for dinner. Of course, first we have to swing by the airport to pick up our rental van because tomorrow when we’re at the house the van will get picked up and get put in a really big box and then onto a ship and sailed over the ocen blue. After dropping our van off at the hotel, we swung the shuttle to the airport and picked up the rental, heading straight to Connecticut Avenue to see Jeff. Once we’d all gathered, we decided on Vietnamese food right down the street. It was great! We all had soup and were totally clueless as to the size apparently. Never order a large bowl of soup at a Vietnamese restaurant because it’s big enough to feed 3 people! It was excellent, and we had plenty of laughing until my sides hurt. How nice to have a break and just be silly for a while.
Friday, March 21st: Last day at our home before it’s rented out tomorrow. It’s a sad kind of day but Ian and I enjoyed spending some time together just wandering the rooms and swinging on the porch. The house looks great and we’re ready to have tenants. Everyone was here when we arrived and the chimney was done in 15 minutes, the maids took a couple hours and the carpet took until 11:30. The giant tow truck came and loaded up our van after making notes of all the scratches and dings already on it. Who knew! I sure didn’t notice all the scrapes and scratches. With a little time to ourselves, we talked on the swing and our neighbor came by to chat. She went right into saying how she’d been hoping to have time now to spend more time with neighbors. As it had been a rough past year seeing as she’d been laid off recently and her high school daughter had been raped and had just given birth and it was an open adoption, and the Navy might not let her husband retire on time depending on how long the war in Iraq lasts. Whoah.. do I have a sign on my head that says share all personal life stories here? Why is it people give just enough one-sided information to make you spend the rest of the day wasting brain cells speculating? After offering our sympathies we were set to have Nancy the Property Manager come over and we did a walk through of the house, showing her all the things we’d left behind like the lawnmower and paint and cleaners. Then we left. Goodbye house. Nancy will take a video of the premises for our file and hopefully all will be well.
We had a nice lunch out at Daks grill, just the two of us, and being a fish Friday we had some yummy food. Once we got back to my parents house I was happy to hear that no one else had gotten sick and that Jonathon seemed to be on the mend. Ian and my dad went to FSI to check out and when they returned we decided to go out to dinner together to a nearby Chinese buffet. While driving there, the boys fell asleep and Katherine started saying that her tummy hurt. Uh oh. Arriving there, she was still feeling sick, but also getting upset that we were thinking of missing dinner because of her. It’s hard to explain to a 7 year old that getting sick is no one’s fault and no one was blaming her. We just wanted to get back to the hotel so she could rest. We almost made it all the way to the parking garage before she lost all the food she’d eaten. Thankfully we’d had the forethought to give her a plastic bag, just in case. It came in very handy. And now we know this isn’t a fluke, that something is going around and all we can do is hope they all get it before we head to the airport Monday morning. We did try to order room service and asked for some plain noodles with cheese for the kids to eat. No one was hungry though and we spent an exorbitant amount on food that wasn’t eaten. The cheese had mold in it (and no, it wasn’t supposed to) so we complained, but all that got us was the noodles taken off the bill. Well, $14 for 4 bowls of plain noodles isn’t a pittance.
Katherine slept in the second double bed as she was miserable with dry heaves every 5-10 minutes, while Nicholas and Rebecca shared the sleeper sofa. That actually seems to work out much better. For some reason the girls just bicker all night, but these 2 managed to sleep well.

Ah ha!

It's happening! It's really happening. She's starting to sound out street signs. When making picutres, she'll try to label them or write what they're about or who they are for. It's actually happening! Add to that her great job learning to play chess, and doing math in her head, well, she's a smart cookie when she wants to be.

Tonight she's sharing the sleeper sofa with Nicholas since Katherine is in the extra double in the bedroom here in the hotel suite. The first couple nights, there was a lot of bickering, kicking, rolling into each other. But it seems that she and Nicholas will be a better match.

Sickies hit again

Like this move isn't stressful enough, living in a hotel, eating restaurant food, sleeping in strange beds and cribs, a couple days ago he lost his dinner at Chili's. I guess I can be happy that while in the hotel someone else has to wash sheets and the carpet and the towels over and over again. He's taken it like a trouper though, and today is finally better on several days of crackers, pretzels and juice.

Who am I kidding, it's what he'd eat every other day if he had the choice :)

Chop chop

Grandpa thought Nicholas was getting too shaggy, so off they went for a boys trip to the barber. He's looking mighty cute now. Grandpa got his hair cut so that Nicholas could watch the whole process first and go through it himself without worry. Of course, I knew he'd do fabulous even without a guide, but they had a good time together. Grandpa even took him out after to get a couple new cars.

Last night he slept overnight at the grandparents home along with his siblings. I was told how he had a little bit of a hard time going to bed wanting mom and dad, but eventually it all worked out. After Katherine and Rebecca took care of him when he didn't want to sleep by sitting with him and looking through baby pictures, Katherine let him fall asleep in her bed. When it came time for Katherine to get to sleep, she decided that it was OK for Nicholas to stay there, and she'd just cozy up with him. How cute is that?

A couple days ago we went to the hotel pool. Nice and heated, with a great hot tub, we stuck some water wings on him, but before we knew it, he was paddling around the whole pool without any help. I figure it won't take too long in Manila before he's a true swimmer. He was very pleased with himself and kept saying "No hep, me 'im!"

Moving on to a new stage

She's put on a brave face for the most part, but there are times when she breaks down, showing how sad she is to be leaving her school and her friends. And she gets worried that no one in Manila will like her or be able to speak to her. It's amazing how sensitive she really is, to -everything-. She can take a ribbing, but not as far as we think oftentimes. There is a very caring, gentle, compassionate nature to her that I don't ever want to quelch. This afternoon she found out our neighbor (5yo) wasn't feeling well, so both she and her sister headed inside and made him get well gifts which they promptly brought over.

She did really well at King. Her teacher seemed to enjoy having her, and I know that her principal, Mr. Shaw, will miss her. Her reading is excellent, her math is taking off (she's into multiplication now), and she's interested in learning about everything. Yesterday she was very pleased to finally beat her sister in chess. Oddly enough though, chess just isn't her game, as she hadn't realized she'd won and often has to be reminded that Rebecca is in check. Her phone skills are still greatly lacking, but we're working on them slowly.

A while ago the box (yes, just a box, not a boxspring or anything that fancy, when we bought it we were poor as church mice) under the mattress of her bed cracked badly. No one could put any amount of pressure on one corner as it would then collapse. Hmmm. So, finally, the box has been thrown out as has the frame. And the mattress is on the floor in her room. Next step, the mattress gets brought back to grandma's house for their trundle and for a couple nights, we'll either bring the futon mattress to the girls room, or we'll move Nicholas back to his toddler bed and give Katherine the full-sized... or the choice that everyone seems to like best is that Katherine and Rebecca share one twin. Why they think that's a good idea? No clue. But if it makes them happy, why not.

This morning we had a yard sale and she was really happy with that. The weather was pretty nice and all the kids played outside. Freeze tag, hide-n-seek. She's really good at keeping track of Jonathon, and she helped get him dressed this morning even while he complained the whole time. The only time she got in trouble was after they raked a big pile of leaves, she grabbed a few handfuls and stuffed them in Rebecca's underwear and pants. Ew, itchy.

Katherine is getting so big and tall now. She's almost a young lady. Of course, I suppose those top 2 teeth will finally have to fall out for that to happen! They've been ever so slightly wiggly for a long time now.

I'll let you know how she handles the flights, the stay in Hawaii and the transition to Manila.

New Kids' pages

We're redesigning the kids' pages, so we can edit them through MoveableType, which we use for this index. This post makes those pages appear, so ignore this.

Jonathon's 18mo check-up

As I'd mentioned before, Jonathon is 18 months and went to the doctor's office last Friday. He weighed in at 24 pounds and measured 31.25 inches.

We arrived at 8:30 even though it was snowing (again), and checked in. Sat around. At 9, all the folks who'd been there before us were being seen. More people filtered in, and were called back. At 9:30 after this had happened again I asked why we were still waiting around and was told that the nurse was involved with an emergency that had come in around the same time we did, and would see us in 5-10 minutes. This is Kaiser, there isn't just one nurse, I have no idea why one of the others couldn't have squeezed us in. Thank goodness the waiting room has toys, and even a TV. Since we were there for 2 1/2 hours, I don't mind the kids watching SpongBob.

Anyway we were finally called back, and weirded out the nurses with Jonathon's cloth diaper (he was wearing a Kissaluv fitted with a Bumpy cover, nice and easy to put on and take off for exams, weights). Thankfully Ian had come and the other kids were with him, so Jonathon was the only one bored and opening drawers and playing with the sink in the exam room. The nurse came in and we discussed his food intake, speech and all the normal stuff. Nothing terribly exciting. He was amazingly patient and still while she used the stethoscope and otoscope and all the other scopes. Anyone who knows him though, knows that he remains very somber in uncertain situations, and that's exactly how he was. He was fascinated with that sink though. Kept trying to climb up on the rolling stool to turn the water on and tumbled off once half way up. The exam light was another favorite. Why they keep the lights really low down and have an easy switch, who knows!

We learned that with missing Jonathon's 15 month visit, we had to catch up on his vaccinations. He was stalwart through all four of them, it was truly amazing. He put all his siblings to shame. One annoying thing was that I asked the nurse if I could nurse him through them since I've heard and read that it can ease the sting (guess we didn't need that though), and she told me no since there was a risk of aspirating. I guess she didn't realize that an 18 month nurser does it lots more for comfort (which is what I was offering anyway) and my number of letdowns can be counted on one hand in a week.

He did great. We got a copy of his vaccination record for the move and I guess we're all set. Rebecca peed in a cup again since the last specimen came back with some irregularities and they wanted a recheck. Let's hope that's just nothing.