Keal Family Letter, October 2007

Hello Friends and Family!

Happy October to you all!

This is the beginning of a new phase in our life. These next two
months are going to be rough going for a while.

Tirah goes back to work on Friday after over two months of glorious
maternity leave. It was a wonderful taste of heaven. A glimpse into
our ideal situation, which we hope to achieve someday, namely: having
everybody at home all the time. One of our goals in life is to reach
a point where I, or both Tirah and I are working solely from home,
and supporting the family. This is our dream. With God nothing is
impossible!

Jaden will be 8 weeks old this Saturday. I will very soon be the
stay-at-home dad of 2 toddlers and a 2 month old baby! Adventure,
here we come! It will be rough going for a while. Jaden still
very much prefers Tirah to me. But I've been able to successfully
bottle feed him. Tirah goes back to work right in time for the busy
season at Hawk Mountain. So she'll be working longer hours until
December.
Thea and Cirdan love to watch Backyardigans, and in one of their
favorite episodes, as their Viking ship is heading towards a
whirlpool, one of them asks "What do we do!?" and another one
replies, "The only thing we can do... HOLD ON TIGHT!"
So that's what we'll be doing for these next two months... holding on
tight. Holding on to our sanity, our sense of control, our sense of
purpose, and our sense of humor.

Jaden is over his diaper rash and baby eczema (thank the Lord!), but
unfortunately he's been suffering from colic all month. So he
continues to be a very fussy little baby. We took him to the
chiropractor the other day (or the "choir-practor" as our kids call
him), and he's got Tirah on a diet of no dairy, to see if that will
help Jaden to better digest her breast milk. Tirah was already off
chocolate, because that helped to clear up Jaden's eczema. So now,
sadly, she's off chocolate and milk (which of course includes
chocolate milk), and she's missing them horribly. But it's all worth
it, if it helps Jaden feel better! (Of course that's easy for me to
say!)

One of the only things that calms Jaden is walking with him on our
tread mill. I don't know if it's the motion or the vibrations or the
noise, but it often calms him down (not guaranteed). We may be worn-
out sleep-deprived parents, but at least we're in shape! Um... I
guess.

And on top of Jaden's colic, he now has a cold (which he got from
Thea and Cirdan)! So Jaden continues to spend most of his time
crying. I'd say he spends about 90% of the time that he's not
eating or sleeping, crying. Well maybe it's down to 80%. 80% or
90%, it still FEELS like he cries all the time!

I've been amazed at how codependent I can be with my children. If
they're mad, I get mad. If they're sad, I get sad. If they're
happy, I'm happy. It's like I'm a slave to their emotions.
Jaden's fussiness has been a useful exercise in learning to maintain
my own sense of well-being, despite the emotional roller coasters
that my children are. It's hard, but it's possible... and
ultimately better for everyone.

Cirdan and Thea are still getting over their colds, but they're
mostly back to normal. Although normal has drastically changed since
Jaden has been born. The kid's are still adjusting to the fact that
they don't get most of our attention anymore.

The other day Thea was asking about Jaden's name: "Papa, why does
Jaden have two names?"
"Well, Jaden has a middle name which is Micah! You have a middle
name too... do you know what it is?"
"Yes, my middle name is Clarity Keal!"
"Well, actually Keal is your last name, but yes, Clarity is your
middle name. Cirdan do you know what your middle name is?"
"Yes.... it's.... Cirdan..... Winner-Guy!"

Cirdan "Winner-Guy" Keal. I have no idea where he came up with that!

Tirah just got her hair cut yesterday. It is now REALLY SHORT!
Much to my disappointment. But if it helps maintain this busy
Mama's sanity, then I'm in favor of it. I'm just looking forward to
when she grows it out again!

Tirah goes back to work on Friday (the 5th). She is not really
looking forward to it. It has been so nice to have her home for all
this time, and she is very much in Mama-mode right now, and not in
Work-mode. I think once she's back at work, it will be O.K., but I
know she'll miss us, and we'll miss her. It's good incentive for
me to keep working on building my business, so that one day she can
decide whether she wants to keep working or not.

We're still looking for a new place to live, whether it be renting or
buying. We've enlisted the aid of a realtor to help us find a house
that we could fit in, and afford the payments on. There is also a
slight chance that we may be able to rent the house next door. That
would actually be really nice because we might be able to move in in
the next couple months, and the kids wouldn't be far from Meemaw and
Deedaw. We're still not sure if we can afford to rent the house
next door. But if we can, it would be a great place to live until we
find a place that we can buy. It would certainly fit us nicely. I
would have a bigger room for my studio too.

Needless to say, with the possibility of moving soon, and the fact
that we don't have much money left over until Tirah's next paycheck,
we've been looking into ways of cutting our expenses. One thing
that we started doing is: shopping for a month. On Monday I went to
Sam's Club, and I bought all of our food for a whole month! We have
a little money set aside to buy milk and produce, but other than
that, we can only eat what we have in our fridge and freezer, for the
rest of the month! In preparation for this we skipped our last
shopping trip and ate up all the dregs out of our fridge and
freezer. You know, the left-over bread, the things stuffed way back
in the freezer. It was actually a really good exercise in creative
meal planning. I find that I tend to assume that a meal should have
certain components. But there's nothing wrong with having just a
block of cheese for lunch... especially if that's all that's left to
eat! We managed to stretch out the last week of August without a
shopping trip, and we cleaned out our fridge and freezer. We got
pretty creative with meal planning. It was kind of a fun exercise.
And hopefully we can shave a $100 or so off of our monthly grocery bill!

On the 16th we went down to Lutherville Maryland to visit with Steve
and Galadriel and Kate and Genai and new baby Joel. It was a fun
visit, and it went really well as far as traveling with a newborn.
Jaden seems to do better when we're out and about. He likes the
car. He also tends to go to sleep when there's a lot of commotion...
I guess it's a defense mechanism. Or maybe he likes to behave for
family and friends, but not us. I don't know. We also took him
out to a party recently, and he was fine! We went to a Going-Away
party for Justin Hendricks who is joining the Army!

We had planned to go out to Ohio before Tirah's maternity leave was
up, but unfortunately the timing didn't work out, because the family
was sick in Ohio, and we didn't want to expose Jaden to it. Oh well.

Last night Tirah and I attending the first meeting of a 6 week
parenting course that we're taking. It looks like it will be very
helpful in our endeavors to become better parents for our growing
family.

Oh yes! Some fun news: Both Roxanne and Tamar are pregnant with
their third child! By the end of next year, my Mom and Dad will
have 9 grandchildren!

Well, that's about all for now. Next month, I'll let you know how
we're doing with Tirah back at work and me as the full-time dad... if
I can get to the computer!

Have a great day!

Love,

- Solomon (30), Tirah (27), Thea (4.5), Cirdan (3), Jaden (8 weeks).