Happy Chinese New Year

Gong He Fat Choi

Welcome to the year of the Rat, or mouse if you prefer, either way it’s a rodent.

The year of the rat is auspicious for all new beginnings. It’s a time to turn over a new leaf and take a fresh look at the world. Spirits rise in the Rat years and market economies begin to show and upward turn. Discoveries and inventions are especially prevalent and, for all, opportunities abound.

Leadership sits well on the shoulders of those born in the year of the rat. For, just as this is the first sign of the twelve, so Rats like to be head of the game, at the forefront of the action and where they can give orders. Restless and inquisitive, these are busy people whose minds are constantly on the go. Above all they are clever and instinctively shrewd. As the Chinese say even in times of scarcity, Rats somehow always know where sacks of grain can be found. No wonder, then, that these remarkably resourceful creatures are the supreme opportunists and arch survivors of the Animal signs.

From east west astrology by Lori Reid

Not much going on, on the kitchen front, just minor things this past week. Ken set up the wiring for the oven and a couple extra outlets. They came and measured for the granite. We should be getting the replacement trim today so they can finish up the cabinets this weekend. Ken being the engineer that he is, has been particularly anal. The cabinets on the return are slightly off square, each one is an 1/8 inch off so overall it is ¼ inch off. He’s been trying to figure out how to fix it without taking everything apart. Mostly because the facing has been glued into place on the backside and the cabinets are screwed together in such a way that it’s really hard to get to a couple of them.

Thursday was Quin’s well baby appointment. I made it so we went right after I dropped Alex at school. I mentioned to the doctor that I was starting to get worried about Quin’s lack of vocabulary. He has three words at this point Mama, Aweh (Alex), and Dada. He gave me some numbers for hearing testing because he’s not really making animal sounds or pointing to body parts and such when I say the names either. When he checked his ears there was a lot of fluid. I got a script for some antibiotics, I guess it looked like they’d been like that a while. His first ear infection and I didn’t notice. I guess I figured his discomfort when lying down was from all the teeth he was cutting. They’ve been coming through one after the other the last two months. He has almost all of them now. The Doctor did say that they may not test Quin until 18 months because it’s a bit early to worry too much. It may also be that he had the fluid in his ears so long he wasn’t hearing anything correctly.

I spent Thursday evening and Friday doing last minute stuff for the book fair. Ken got home around 4pm, very jet lagged. He wasn’t very functional but he needed to stay up until at least 9:30 or he’d never get back in the right time zone. I had to wake him the next morning at 9:00 so I could go over to the store and make sure everything was set up. Came back home fed the kids lunch put Quin down for a nap and took Alex back over to the store so he could help me with story time. We picked Bear Snores On and Snowmen at Night to read. Ken came by after Quin woke up and got Alex and I went to work. Lucky me I ended up in receiving, actually it’s not a bad thing. I had a migraine so dealing with people would have been a trial. I’d taken enough painkillers at that point it was just a dull throb. At around 8:00 I was freed to help clean up the store which looked like a bomb had gone off. It was in a good cause and with the sales the book fair brought in the Goddard PTO will take home almost $600, especially since it wasn’t a lot of work on their part.
Sunday I wasn’t supposed to wake Ken until I was ready to leave for work but he got a bug up his butt about the oven cabinet and figured out it was made in such a way that we were supposed to cut it to fit our specific oven. So he worked on that until I went to work. My job Sunday was to take down January displays and put up February ones in the kids department.

Monday was back to routine, almost. Ken was home to meet the guy doing the granite template. I took Alex to school, came back played with Quin a bit, fed him put him down for a nap went and got Alex. The teacher said he’s doing really good with his numbers and he’s one of the youngest in the class. Of course part of his motivation was this week’s subject is trains and the game they had on the computer was Thomas. It is pretty amazing watching him lately, he spells out all the words he sees. I see the understanding between letters and sounds and written words starting to click. I worked again Monday night and Tuesday was back and forth to the dentist day for cleanings. Silly me back in August, when Quin wasn’t really mobile, I figured I’d split up my cleaning from Alex’s. Take Quin with me in the morning have a friend watch him in the afternoon when I took Alex after school. That won’t happen again next cleanings are back to back. But my friend Jean was really great about watching Quin for both appointments. She said she’s just returning the favor of me taking her oldest to gymnastics class the last few weeks because she’s had to take the baby to weight checks at the doctor’s office. He wasn’t gaining enough weight and it was becoming a failure to thrive situation. He’s doing much better now on the right formula and gaining about a pound a week.

Yesterday was gymnastics class and playgroup lunch at Chuck E Cheese. I don’t mind these as much anymore most because my kids collapse in exhaustion when we get home at 1:30-2:00. Last night was the PTO meeting. My son isn’t even in elementary school and I’m going to PTO meetings, weird. Not sure how long this will last but I’m doing a self portrait a day challenge this month. I’ve kept up so far. I know I couldn’t do a whole year. I’ve been trying to do just a photo a day challenge for a year and a half now, and the days I miss add up to about a week a month. I’ll upload what I have so far and try and post them.