Well baby Andrew is just about 3 months and 2 weeks old. Time sure is flying fast, but that’s ok for me! Andrew has been the crankiest baby Ive seen in a long time. Only now is he starting to act happy more than 5 minutes per day. For the last month, he’s been non-stop miserable. Unlike Chris, he wakes up in a bad mood, wants fed, and then gets cranky and restless because he wants to be held 24/7. As of now, he’s getting more interested in things around him, smiles and laughs at things. I enjoy him when he’s being a good boy!! He’s up to 6oz of formula per feeding now, usually about 4 times per day with 3tbsp. of rice cereal in each bottle. I’m gradually starting him on solids. He had some peaches and cereal yesterday.
At Andrew’s last check-up a couple weeks ago he was weighing in at 12lbs 14oz, and 22 inches long. Still about a month behind in weight and length, but ok. He’s not underweight at all. In fact, Id have to say he’s a chunky little monkey.
We’ve had Chris & Andrew’s pictures taken now 3 times in the last month. Wal-Mart was bad, so I took them to Penney’s. Well I received all my pictures back from JC Penney, except for the biggest package I ordered of the both of them together. So then I had to take them back to the studio wearing the same outfits 3 weeks later to have that shot redone. I have to say though, I think the new shot turned out better. Because Andrew was three weeks older, he was able to smile. It will be a cute picture. I won’t get it back until June 15th I think.
We all (Matt, Julie, James, and myself) went up north to Wolverine again on May 20th to mushroom hunt. This time we didn’t find any mushrooms, which sucked. I can’t say that we put in a true effort, but just looking around you could tell that conditions sucked. It was dry, yet it had rained the day before. You need moist / hot conditions for the mushrooms to grow.
Julie forced me to go tubing, and I thought it would have been fun. She recommended that we have shoes on, but I didn’t bring a spare pair of shoes, so she agreed to go with me barefoot. Never again will I make that mistake. While tubing down the Sturgeon River, I kept smashing into trees and rocks (and plenty of gross spiders!). It was a painful journey. Because it was my first time I had no control whatsoever, unlike Julie who floated right down the center of the river the whole time!! So after an hour of floating, we thought we were near the end, so Julie decides we should get out, because she thinks she sees the road by the side of the river. Firstly, she makes the mistake of trying to get out where the current is really fast. She gets out no problem of course, but unlike her, I had a monster truck sized innertube around my waist. I could not get up out of the water, let alone walk across sharp rocks with my feet. The current was sweeping me away, literally! Because the innertube was around my waist, I had to hold on to a branch for dear life otherwise I would have kept going down the river. So after a few minutes of pleading with Julie, she got back in and removed the innertube from around my waist. At that point I could stand up, but my next challenge was walking across the rocks on the bottom. They were sharp, and it was painful. After I finally made it to the side of the river (it’s only 15 feet wide). Once we get up to the grassy area, Im like “Wow, grass, cool”. We start walking and taking steps and we discover it is full of Thistles!!!! Our feet we being stabbed by thorns with every step we took. VERY VERY Painful!!! I was about ready to give up and die at this moment in time. Julie was slightly off on “seeing the road” as it was there, but it was beyond this large grassy thistle area, and across a small swamp area. Eventually we make it across the grass, only to come to where railroad tracks used to be, so it was now a small grave area to cross, with spiders all over the ground. At that point I told Julie to dial 911 because I wasn’t going to make it, my feet were bleeding and hurt so bad. We get up to the swamp area, and it’s like 5 feet deep of mud and probably every creepy bug imaginable as well as snakes. Julie’s like, “I got us into this mess, Im going to get us out of it”. THANK GOD she was smart enough to pack her cell phone in Ziploc bags and stuffed it into her bra; otherwise we would have had some problems! But anyhow, the road was just on the other side, so if we could just get over there, we could call Matt to pick us up. At this point Matt was waiting at the other end for us, which we didn’t find out until later that was still another mile away! So she treks through this muddy mess and finally makes it across. She calls Matt, but in the meantime Im like, ok I have to do this. So Im walking through this swamp mess, and it is so gross. My feet are sinking to the bottom, and I can feel bugs all over me. While Im half-way through, I see Matt pull up, so I hurry up and get out as quickly as possible. We got back to the campground and immediately showered. Our feet were in so much pain, it hurt really super bad. I had gashes, and thorns stuck in both my feet.
It’s so funny now, but it wasn’t then! I will do it again though, only with shoes on next time!
As for other things…. well, Chris’ 3rd b-day is coming up in another week. He’s getting too smart for me, and mouthy. I’m sure his phase will pass. I ordered him a SpongeBob Squarepants birthday cake from CPJ Bakery. As usual Im sure it will be very nice. We are going up north again next weekend for Chris’ birthday, but this time my mom and sister are going, and maybe one of her friends. Paul will too provide he doesn’t have a job yet.
Matt’s blood test results came back yesterday and they were horrible as usual. He’s got really high liver enzymes and we are worried about that. Today we are doing a homeopathic liver flush, which means we spend 24 hours drinking Epsom salt, olive oil and grapefruit juice. This is the start of a permanent change for us. Our lifestyle is not healthy and we have to do something.
Well that’s all for now, it’s been a really long post! I will update again soon!