Sunday with Riley

I guess I have been pretty busy because I haven't posted anything in over a week. The day after Riley was diagnosed with "pink eye", she was also diagnosed with an ear infection. This required once per day liquid antibiotic by mouth for 10 days on top of the three times per day eye drops for a week (starting yesterday the eye started getting goopy again-- ugghhh). The antibiotic must have really messed up her stomach because then she stopped eating most of the things that I had finally gotten her to eat. It is my biggest frustration right now-- Riley not wanting to eat. Her diet consists of cereal (anywhere from Cheerios to Trix), bites of banana or grapes or mandarin oranges, Gerber Crunchies or Wagon wheels or Puffs or Yogurt melts, occasionally Gerber pasta and sauce (none of the other varieties though), Yo-baby yogurt, Sunkist fruit snacks, pickles (thanks to daddy), ice cream at bedtime (thanks to mama). Anything else that we attempt to give her she either refuses to eat or she eats a bite and then the second bite she spits out or throws at us or the dogs. I don't want mealtimes to be a battle zone so we just try to offer different things and then after she doesn't eat them we usually eventually get her to eat a few bites of something from the above list. The whole amazing thing is that she poops all the time, now sometimes she does have a little constipation problem but that is probably due to the fact that most of her intake is fiber free-- that's when we really encourage the fruit ( I bet that was really too much information).

Riley also got her schedule all messed up this week because her regular babysitter went to California unexpectedly to attend a friends' funeral. Grandad stayed with her on Wednesday, my friend Deidre watched her Thursday, and Jason stayed home with her on Friday. It has made her rather cranky and out of sorts. She looks at me sometimes like "what is going to happen next", plus she has wanted to do a lot of cuddling (which is fine with me).

We went to church last night because this morning Jason took Blaine, Evan, and their friend Sam Ward to Paoli Peaks to go skiing with the Cub Scouts. I would have loved to go also but that would have required someone else to stay here with Riley. After having to find babysitters for her last week and her being a little on the grouchy side I decided that it was best for me to just stay home with her. She was already acting like she wanted to nap at 9am but I held her off until 10:30 am because usually she doesn't want to take an afternoon nap and I was afraid if she napped too early than she would be in a worse mood later. Jason did most of the grocery shopping yesterday but I need to go back and get a few things that he missed. So hopefully after she naps she will eat a little something and than we will get the rest of the shopping done.

We are on the 4th week of the www.e-mealz.com program which provides us with our weekly menus & shopping list. It has worked out rather well. We go out to eat less and eat more of a variety of foods. I wish that meant that Riley ate a variety too but usually when we try to feed her what we are eating she refuses. The boys like most of the foods that we prepare, we always make them at least try a little of everything and they really don't complain too much. Blaine is a lot better than any of them at trying at least a bite of something.

We also found out last weekend that Evan's mom got the job in Mobile, Alabama. So that will mean that next school year Evan will be moving there with her. I always knew that we would be eventually moving from this area but I didn't know that this is how it would come about. Jason indicates that we will probably not move until about a year from now but I'm sure it will all depend on whether (when) he can find a job close to Mobile too. One thing that I am definitely looking forward to is the fact that it is going to be warmer weather!

Well, Riley should be waking up from her nap soon so I better go get myself prepared!!