Adieu, old house...

Well, we did it -- we got everything packed up and out of our first house by noon yesterday (with 25 minutes to spare!).

Ben said his good-bye to the house on Friday, when his "grammy" came and took him out to her house (we made three subsequent runs of stuff, so it was very helpful to have him elsewhere). We walked around the house and said good-bye to the different rooms. When we got to Ben's room I got all teary-eyed, and Ben had a couple tears, too. He seems to be dealing pretty well with things. He did tell me a couple times after his nap yesterday, "I want to go to your house." So we went through how we don't live in that house anymore, that for now we live at Grammy's and soon we'll be able to live in the brick house. Well, hopefully sooner rather than later!

I was so excited to go to Kohl's yesterday and buy new bedding for our bed. It's going to stay packed up and get it's grand unveiling at the new house! It's a neutral (sort of creamy with black abstract-ish floral pattern, for lack of a better description), so feel free to leave suggestions for wall paint (we're only going to do two walls -- not the ones that have the steep roof angle).

The kitties are managing. Cleo was in hiding for the first night. She was discovered just before we left to go up to the house yesterday morning for the final cleaning/move, much to our relief, hiding behind the TV components. She has been blocked from that spot (which she kept returning) and has finally starting venturing. Arwen and Shadow have both been fairly adventurous, and very affectionate at night, never leaving the room Andy and I are using.

We found a new home for Zoe, and Maggie's living at Andy's dad's until a better home can be located. As some of you know, Ben is inexplicably terrified of them. Not just our dogs -- all dogs larger than Scout (my mom's Yorkie -- so that's most dogs). We were at Todd and Sara's last night and their dog, Lucy, walked past Ben and he ran to me saying, "She hurt me!" So we decided to find new homes for our dogs, and maybe when Ben and his brother are both bigger and able to help more we'll get another dog. A smaller dog (but not as small as Scout!). At any rate, the search continues for a Maggie home, and in the meantime she's getting some attention from my nephews up at Andy's dad's.

And that's about it. Back to school tomorrow. Those research papers my students finished before break are waiting in the living room to be graded, and, to use a much over-used phrase, they aren't going to grade themselves! Good thing it's cooler today -- it won't be quit as hard to make myself do them!

"What happened??"

We're making steady progress on our move -- faster than I thought, honestly. Andy's been enlisting various people to help him load and run stuff out to his mom's, and I've been here packing things up. Yesterday Heather, Sara (with baby Lorelei) and Amy (with Max) were all here helping me pack up the kitchen, which we managed to get completely done (aside from food, fridge, cleaning products and a handful of dishes still in use). In fact, we were too efficient -- we had to run out to Target last night to get a food container for the leftovers from yesterday's crockpot dinner!

Ben has been alternately excited and somewhat traumatized by the move. For the most part he's taken it quite well, but we've had some funny moments at his expense the last few days (and some exasperated moments, as well). Monday Andy and Ron moved his toy box to Ginny's, and as they walked past Ben cried out, "No, its mines!!" I explained that they were talking it to "Grammy's" and Ben immediately started asking to go to Grammy's. That lasted for most of the day.

Monday was also one of those, "Take a nap? No way!" kind of days for Ben. We had removed all his furniture (which prompted the "What happened?" exclamation when he noticed it), so we had a huge wardrobe packing box in his room to put his lamp and cd player on. When I went in to check on him at one point, I found him lamenting, "What's wrong with the box!?!" and looking like this: Not really sure how it happened. He never did have a story to tell about it. All he was concerned about was what was wrong with the box! I tried pointing out that there are handles on it (which I thought he might have been bothered by since they're holes) and explained it was taking place of his changing table. We gave up on a nap. Later that night when we were getting him ready for bed, I heard a very pathetic meow. From the box. Yeah, Shadow got herself packed into it. She was in there for at least 9 hours. Thank goodness she didn't do any damage to my clothes!!!

Yesterday Ben actually did take a nap. Like this:


Then when he got up, he looked like this:


I think Ben could sleep just about in any position and still be comfortable. What an enviable ability.

PART II

Later this evening, we came home and found this (photo is a reenactment):

She is apparently determined to live in this box. We hadn't sealed it, but as you can see we had pinned the flaps down with stuff from Ben's room. That apparently was not enough to stop her.

Rest assured, the box is now securely taped (sans Shadow -- or the rest of our felines, for that matter).

Happy birthday, Jackson!

Ben was extremely excited to go to Jackson's birthday party on Saturday night. He even "helped" me wrap the present we got (he held down the paper while I taped, and once I was done he proceeded to try to unwrap it "for Jackson"). The boys had a fantastic time -- they especially enjoyed dumping Ron's poker chips everywhere and rolling around on large balloons. Fun was had by all.

Then Ben got caught with his hands in the cake. That was hysterical -- especially when he nearly started to cry because he hated being covered in frosting (my fault -- I used to always wash him off as soon as he got anything on him, so now he hates anything sticky!!).

Under pressure...

I think I might explode.

Okay, not really. Things haven't been going as smoothly as one would hope regarding our new home purchase and sale.

Monday we found out that the homeowner of our new house's assertion that the flood insurance required was only a "couple hundred dollars" was a little off. You see, despite being bone dry, never having flooded since it was built ~70 years ago, and around 1000 feet from a stream (NOT a major river), this house we love is in flood zone AE -- the worst there is. So, we were told anywhere from $800something to over $1300, depending on the bank's requirements. Talk about panic! Turns out it is the low end of that, but not a pleasant surprise. We're going to look into having an elevation cert. done with the survey to see if it can be placed in a lower (and cheaper) zone. We'll see! What we won't do to have this house...

Then on Tuesday we get a call from our lawyer that the woman buying our house wants to close... THE NEXT DAY! And give us post possession until Saturday, April 19th to get the heck out of dodge. So we're now living in a house we no longer own! Weird. Anyway, it's a darn good thing we are off all next week, because we will be busy busy busy moving our stuff out to my mother-in-law's. Madness!

That's the update. Cross your fingers for smooth sailing from here on out.

My Hero

I stayed home with Ben today. He has croup and needed to get some sleep. When he got up and I changed his diaper, we had the following conversation:

me "How are you doing?"
Ben "I was sleeping on the bed and you were a fireman."
me "Did you dream that daddy was a fireman?
Ben "Yeah. I was stuck."
me "Where were you stuck?"
Ben "On the train. You came and got me on the train. You were a fireman and saved me."

Then he changed subject completely and asked me to make him bubbles. Now he asking if he can "try it." He wants to use the computer.

I titled this My Hero. Ben dreamed, or at least made up a story about me being his hero. Since he was born, and especially since Jake died, he has been my hero. Moments like these show me how simple true happiness can be.

From the mouths of babes...

I asked Ben, "Who's my big boy? Is it Daddy?"

His reply: "Yes, he's a big child!"

Baby Update

Two weeks ago we found out that our little one is (drum roll please...) another boy! I was waiting until today to post an update because there is a condition which has us on alert, and we had an ultrasound today to get some more information.

At our last ultrasound the technician found that the baby's umbilical cord had only one artery -- it's supposed to have two. Apparently this isn't a horribly uncommon condition, and usually it's everything's okay, but sometimes it is an indicator of something that is a problem. We had a level II ultrasound with Dr. Dolcart today, the local high risk expert. He did a very thorough check of the baby's anatomy and saw no red flags. This doesn't guarantee that everything's okay, but it does indicate a higher likelihood that everything will be fine. He looked at all the organs, took bone measurements, looked at the brain, and saw nothing -- no heart defects, no kidney malformations, no spine issues, none of the anatomy-related Down's markers. There's still a chance that there could be something like a heart defect or a chromosomal defect -- you can't see everything on an ultrasound. But he saw no need for an amnio, so that was good to hear. We have to go back in two months and then probably again toward the end of the pregnancy, mainly to make sure the baby is growing properly, which is another concern with a single umbilical artery.

So that's what we're dealing with now. We're not too worried now that we've seen Dr. Dolcart -- he was very reassuring. Hopefully our biggest problem will be figuring out what we'll name the little guy -- that was difficult enough the last time! Usually Ben votes for "Tractor." Just now he told me "Rintoo" (the tiger character on one of his little kid shows about a little Chinese girl... At least Rintoo is a male character!).