Riley's new soccer season

This season Riley has moved up a league in YMCA soccer.  This has been a major adjustment for all of us.  Our first shock was to find out we would be practicing 2 x's a week for 1 hour 15 min each time.   That is a bit much for a 5 year old in my opinion.  Plus it makes it really hard to try to get him in bed by 8, when we don't finish practice until 7:15!

Our second major adjustment is that he played his first game and didn't score a single goal.  In the age group, the kids have to play positions.  Most of the kids didn't really understand, so they just kind of stood around.  At the beginning of the game, Riley was playing defense, so he was afraid to cross the midfield line.  He just didn't understand when he could go get the ball.  It was really frustrating.  Plus this season, all the kids want to play, so he only played about half the game instead of playing majority of the game. 

I felt bad too because Richard, Karyn, & Ryan had to come to the game.  It was the first game that Ryan & Grandma Karyn had seen him play.  I really wanted to show how good he was, but they just didn't get the chance.  If Riley does not learn how to work the positions, then he will never get to use his speed to really shine on the field.

Last week, the game was rained out, so Saturday will be his 2nd chance to see how he will adjust.

My Poor Mickey

I haven't blogged in FOREVER, so let's see if I can try to catch up on a few of the major events in our life.      
    About a month ago, Randy & I came home from work to find Mickey off his leash and his leash and collar wrapped around the swingset.  That is so not like Mickey.  He never gets off his leash and has only got wrapped up in the swingset once and not wrapped around it multiple times.  Then we noticed that Mickey was really sore on one side of the body.  We just thought it was from rubbing up against the swingset.  Then several days later, we noticed Mickey had a raw spot on his side.  Over the week it grew.  We started to notice his hair falling out around the spot, but again we thought he was biting at it.  Finally it got where the skin was looking infected, so on Friday afternoon I took Mickey & the 2 kids to the vet.  Of course, Randy was out of town (because that is the way fate has it).  Mickey was being real sensitive about the spot, so they decided to sedate him in order to clean the area.
    About 10 minutes later, the nurse came out to ask if we had poured any medication on him.  I assured her that we had not.  Finally the dr came out to warn me that it was much worse than expected and that they had to shave most of his back.  I was totally not prepared to see this!!

Apparantly my dog was the victim of animal cruelty.  Somebody had poured some chemical all over his back.  Because he has so much fur, I had no idea.  I felt horrible that I had not taken him to the vet sooner, but had no idea!  Not to mention furious at the probable kid that also cost me $300 and the time to try to give my dog medicine 2x's a day for 21 days.  (Not an easy task!)

Riley Kissed a Girl!

On Friday during lunch, Riley's kindergarten teacher came up to me to share a story.  Riley, my sweet little rule follower, chose to go up to a girl and kiss her on the lips during class!

What can I say, he is his father's child!!

So after school, I started prompting him to see if he would tell me what happened.  It took alot of prompting but at one point he told me he wouldn't tell me because "it was private!"  I quickly corrected him and told him nothing was too private for Mom!  Then he finally told me he kissed her because he likes her.  But he didn't even know her name!  AHH! Farris boys!

My big 2 year old!

Last Sunday, my baby girl officially turned two.  We celebrated by dragging her to Canton all day!  Not very exciting for her, but she did get a new Aggie diaper cover! :)  Then on Thursday I took her for her two year check-up.  She now weighs 24 lbs (Still holding strong to that 5-10%) and is 35 1/3 inches tall(75-90%).  She is growing steadily so our dr is not too worried about how skinny she is.  We talked about her eczema and how it is still there, although much worse in the winter.  Then we talked about how she is progressing with her speech, and we both concluded that she is just too stubborn to want to talk right now.  Although she is real good at saying "press play please" when we are in the car! We finished up her dr appt with two shots.  She got her flu shot & a booster shot.  Ouch! 

 She is a total toddler when it comes to eating.  Sometimes she will eat a little of everything and other times she eats nothing!  We just keep trying and I am continuing to supplement her morning milk with instant breakfast (which she LOVES!) to add extra calories. 

She still thinks she is as big as Riley and can do anything he does.  Secretely I think she is really enjoying getting to go to Mrs. Tracey's all on her own and not share her time with Riley.  This year she is not the youngest, so we are working on being gentle with baby Lauren (7 months old).  No Alex baby Lauren does not want you to sit in her lap! 

Right now she is fasinated with everything Disney princess.  She can pick out the princess stuff in any store.  Riley is even teaching to play dress up with all of her new princess dresses.  Daddy is so proud ;)

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After the first dr appt, Alex fell asleep in the car for about an hour.  Poor thing woke up with really stiff legs.  The dr had told me to make sure she was moving around after her shots so that she didn't get sore, but not much you can do about it when she falls asleep.  Then we headed to the second appt of the day.  We went to her first appt with the allergist.  Basically we just stumped the dr.  I mentioned how she reacted to peanut butter, but was able to eat peanuts.  She said this should not work that way.  Anyway we decided to go ahead and do some allergy testing.  We tested for peanuts, cinnamon, wheat, milk, & eggs.  The wheat, milk, & eggs are 3 things that frequently cause problems for children with eczema.  We should know the results in about 1-2 weeks.  Unfortuately for Alex, this testing involved taking 3 vials of blood.  A rough day for little Alex, but she was a trooper through the whole thing.