"Why are they eating cookies and I'm not?"

I really haven't felt like blogging lately and work has kept me busy during the day. So I'm not really sure of all the things that have been said or done since the last post. We suspected that he'd become addicted to sugar. So I started eliminating the bread in his lunches, wouldn't let him eat some of the larabars he liked (one has 22g of sugar!), and only let him have juice (albeit doctored with veggie powders and stuff) at lunchtime - not snack too.  He did get a lot more calm and less demanding and argumentative.
I'd been letting the neighbor kids come over and play in the yard after school a lot. The weather was gorgeous, we have the space, and it's open for all parents to watch their kids.  One day he came home asking if Ashleigh could come over and play and I had said not today.  He opens the front door for me and says, "Then I'm just going to yell!"  I very calmly said, "It won't do any good" and kept walking.  I think he was hoping for a challenge or something - but amazingly, that was the end of it. I was pleasantly surprised. Usually he goes on and on complaining about whatever I've said no to and claims he's just going to stay mad/sad/upset about it and nothing will make him happy.  Sometimes I reason with him and he does change his attitude and find other things to do for happiness and other times he wallows in his claimed sorrows and I let him have that choice. It can get exhausting though.

Friday Nov 14th, I had to take photos of a Decade's Dance at the school. He wanted to go dressed as Ironman.  I bought Andrew 15 tickets to use on games. He was disappointed that he couldn't pop a balloon with the darts (close! it bounced off instead), but he did great at the ring toss, tossing a ball into a glass fishbowl, eating a donut off a string without using his hands, blindly gold panning for a treasure in a bucket of rice, bowling with giant inflatable ball and pins, and picking up rubber ducks out of water to get a prize. He enjoyed dancing, which more or less was running and sliding across the floor on his knees and spinning around on the floor with other little boys doing the same thing. His favorite toys were a kazoo in the shape of oversized lips and a little parachute man. He couldn't believe we were letting him eat some of the candy he was winning too. He seemed to have lost interest after spending 10 tickets so the last 5 were hard to get done so we could leave.

Saturday morning he was all prepared with his own Watchtower presentation.  We ended up only doing calls and mine wasn't home for him to try it on. But he went to the door with the Beauchamps and they let him and said he did a wonderful job.  He introduced himself, said that many wonder if Satan is an evil inside of us or a real spirit creature. Reads Revelation 12:9,12. Then adds that the Watchtower tells us how we can protect ourselves from Satan and what will happen to him soon. We had to work a lot on eye contact when we were practicing but he was doing a great job.

In the afternoon I had an emergency appointment to help someone get well. Andrew wouldn't stay out and was most likely exposed to the flu.

Sunday was rainy and we let him sit and play games on his ipad in between helping daddy with projects. They were supposed to go to McD's to get apple pies to bring home but Ted was so hungry he brought burgers home and forgot the pies. So - Andrew got to experience McDonalds finally. At the meeting he started off sitting with Joy and then daddy got asked to be attendant. When Andrew realized daddy wasn't behind him, he got concerned, and ended up sitting with daddy in the back.  Ted said he fell asleep the last 30min of the meeting.  When they came home, Andrew was pretty lethargic. We had to spoon feed him his dinner. Daddy had gone by McD's to get the apple pies he forgot earlier and Andrew couldn't even finish one of those. He had a low grade fever and we put him to bed. He questioned why he felt so bad and I told him that's what happens when we eat McDonalds food. lol 

Monday morning his temperature was 101.1 and he complained of feeling dizzy and the outside of his neck hurt, and off and on he had a headache. He laid on the couch all day watching his videos and sometimes just listening to them. It was hard to get him to drink anything, nevermind eat much. He was completely lethargic and his temperature fluctuated between 100-103.  He asked to go to bed at 7.
He was watching a Pooh movie at one point and they were eating cookies. "Mom, I want to know why they are eating cookies and I'm not!" lol

Tuesday he woke up with more energy but crashed around noon with a high fever again.  Just before 3, he went potty and then asked to take his temperature. It was back in normal range. He asked if he pooped out the fever, and if fever is brown in color. But right around the same time, he started getting congested.

Wednesday he was still home. I had several clients and he enjoyed drawing pictures for them. He'd ask them what their favorite color is, choose that color paper, and then make his pictures.
At lunchtime, I gave him a small sandwich. He started wailing like he was hurt - but it turned out to be, "I took a bite out of the wrong side of the sandwich."  I was completely baffled. When did there become a right and wrong side of the sandwich? This particular sandwich looked identical all the way around!  He had to spit the bite out and start over. Ultimately, he decided he didn't like it anyway.


Thursday I sent him to school just so I could have a break. I knew it would set him back healthwise. He enjoyed his day at school. He told me they had a thanksgiving feast for lunch, but because he doesn't celebrate Thanksgiving - he opted for chicken nuggets.  (And I didn't send him a lunch because I thought he'd actually like the turkey lunch - I didn't even think about it being Thanksgiving! oops!)

Friday morning I had a chiropractors appointment. He was officially on "fall break."  He wanted to draw a picture to give to the receptionist but I told him he had to draw it there. On the paper, he drew a picture of three people in a teepee. Then drew the Native American symbol for 'Happy', and wrote "That is how they feel." 

Saturday was gorgeous weather. I asked him if he wanted to finish the last two bites of his McD's apple pie in the fridge from several days ago. He said, "No! I'm never eating McDonalds again! It will bring the fever back and I don't want that!"  I told him if food caused it - it was probably his cheeseburger, not the pie. (i still can't believe we succumbed to eating there! I love their apple pies, but not anything else!)
It was a workday for us - and right off the bat he was eager to help and asking what he could do. I started painting shelving and daddy started adding trim and fixing things in the house. Andrew begged for a screwdriver and screws so he could build something with scrap wood.  Disappointingly for him - the screws were shorter than the thickness of his wood so it didn't work.  But he enjoyed being outside.  We stopped with just enough time to get ready for service. He still knew his presentation but was no longer interested in service when he learned we were working as a family by ourselves.
After service, we went back to work. He took a nap while daddy went to Lowe's because he was afraid that he'd miss next week's house-sitter when she came by to meet the pups. I continued painting. In the afternoon, he used a spoon and knife to dig for treasures in his dirt mound. Later he said the wind was just right for his kite. He got it out all by himself, ran around in the backyard getting it to fly (with Cara running alongside him, and later Charlie too), and packed it all back up when he was done (without us asking him to!!)  He was actually pretty good most of the day at responding quickly to what we told him.