Welcome back to New England! Yay! We moved to New England in the end of July and I swear we seem to be continuously spending money. "Oh, you need $60...Here ya go..." "Mom, I want to play the flute!" "Can you sign me up for city soccer?" "I want to run cross country with my friend at school." "We need to register our vehicles." "What?! They all need physicals for school?"
Moving is expensive. And stressful. And can be downright painful sometimes. All in all, this move has been wonderful! Besides all the spending.
My husband, who had been struggling to find a decent job for about 3 years, finally landed his dream job with Amazon in February of 2017. That job took us to Virginia. That was painful. Our church friends there are A MAZ ING! Although the culture southern VA is very different from other cultures we have lived in. We lived in a bad area that I lovingly called "the ghetto". There was a drug house just down the street. And we spent a lot of time looking over our shoulder: being completely aware of who was out and about. Yep. It was fun.
My husband's job is fantastic though. We couldn't ask for a better company to work for. And he received a promotion in July 2018 and we were quickly relocated to the lovely state of New Hampshire! The chaos of the move was a little insane at times. But aren't all moves fairly chaotic?
We instantly love it here. The kids can safely play outside. The school bus is much more safe. People are friendly and open. The neighborhood is safe. His commute is literally 4 minutes. haha! Fan-flipping-tastic! The schools, so far, are absolutely awesome! We have already had an IEP meeting with competent and wonderful staff who UNDERSTAND Autism. Hallelujah!
Being in such a great neighborhood and around good people and good weather means that the kids are all outside. They ride bikes up and down the street, play games in the street, walk to Dunkin Donuts on occasion and sometimes play hide and seek.
My 14 year old is extremely active. He loves to be busy doing something. He outgrew his bike and we ended up leaving it when we moved from Maine to Virginia. Now that we live in a safe neighborhood he wanted a bike and we didn't have the extra money to buy one. Being the smarty pants that he is, he came up with an idea to get the money for a bike. He decided to sell his iPod. I helped him list it on the Facebook marketplace. Within a week it was sold and he was able to go buy a bike from Walmart.
Apparently buying bikes at Walmart is NOT the way to go. After only a few days having his bike we realized that the wheel was warped.
Back to the store we went! Bike number 2!
Everything was great! Except the brakes didn't work right. *face palm*
Another trip to the store for Bike number 3! I was thinking...third times a charm. NOT! The gears didn't work properly. Back to the store it went!
We came home with NO bike the last time. My son was very disappointed. I started looking daily on the Facebook marketplace for a used bike. After a few days...low and behold the PERFECT bike popped up. We went that same day and he tried it out. It was BEAUTIFUL! The brakes work. The wheels are not bent. The gears shift like butter. And for half the price of a new bike at Walmart! Win win!!
He is on that bike all the time. When he doesn't have homework, he goes out to ride. He keeps an eye on his sisters while he rides and they can ride too.
On Friday our 6 year old came inside to tell me that her brother was hurt. He RARELY gets hurt. He had run into a pot hole in the road and flipped off his bike. He landed on his wrist and it began to swell. OUCH.
The next day he played in a soccer game before we drove to Maine to help my family with wood. All the adults cautioned him and told him that if his wrist hurt he need to stop. HA! He lugged wood. He chucked wood. "How much wood could a wood chuck..." He split wood. *face palm* He lugged more wood.
By Sunday evening his wrist was sore and he asked to go to the doctor. He ended up with a gutter splint for a severe sprain. At least it wasn't broken!
Back in Maine...while we were getting in wood, my girls were playing outside, like they always do. They played with bugs and caterpillars. They ran around. They went inside to play in the sink. By the time we sat down to eat, little cutie girl was complaining that her fingers were stinging and itchy. She was madly digging at the skin between her fingers. Tear ran down her little cheeks. I examined her hands and couldn't see anything on her skin. Still the itching remained.
Since I don't carry dye free (she can't have dyes) antihistamine in my purse we ended up having to go buy some on the way home. Poor thing was a mess. I had a stroke of genius...or more likely a prompting and I grabbed a movie from Redbox and they watched the whole way home. That kept her mind of the itching.
By Sunday morning she had a rash on her chest and tummy, legs, arms and hands. Yikes! Now I'm all itchy too...
When we took our son in on Monday to see the doctor the cutie girl came along. I was fairly certain that the rash was a reaction to the white fuzzy caterpillar she played with. The nurses, of course, didn't want listen to that. But thankfully, after examining her, the doctor agreed. It was the cute fuzzy white caterpillar that she simply could NOT resist playing with. She LOVES her creatures. Butterflies, dragonflies, beetles (gross), lady bugs, slugs (yuck) and caterpillars too. And while the adorable little girl with spots is not contagious, she is self conscience and doesn't want anyone to see her spots. She has been wearing long pants and long sleeves every day since.
This morning we realized that the spots are going away! Yay!
Today after an appointment with an orthopedic doctor my son's splint came off. Double Yay!
It's a good day!
