Mandajuice

Birthday Boy!

Birthday Boy!, originally uploaded by Mandajuice.

Alex turns FOUR today!

Quickly while the kids play in the back yard (!!!)

It's a busy week.  My mom is in town, Alex's birthday party is this weekend and the guys have been here daily working on the ceiling, which is now completely open:

I'm happy to report that I'm still laughing about the whole ordeal, but you probably can't hear me over the SOUND OF THE FANS.  I'm doing pretty well considering, but it would be really nice if I could hear my own thoughts again some time soon. 

The other day I made Alex some pasta and I told him how I was going to put it in a "glass bowl."  He started crying and kept repeating, "I'm not at school!"  When I finally got close enough to hear him properly, he corrected me and said, "I'M NOT AN ASSHOLE!"  I felt so bad!  No wonder he started crying - I've never called him a name in his life!  Poor kid.

Stupid fans.

The biggest disappointment is that absolutely zero progress has been made towards unpacking and decorating and I had really hoped to get as much done as I possibly could before Alex's party on Saturday.  Now I just figure why bother.  I was going to hang my new IKEA drapes, but they're just going to come down next week when the ceiling reconstruction begins.  Ditto for hanging pictures and making things look nice.  Anything I put out is going to be covered in drywall dust before long.  Don't even get me started on how impossible it is to keep my new floors clean when workers are in and out all day.  I've pretty much given up.

I'm continuing to post at The Mom Street Journal and Club Mom, but other than that, I probably won't be around much.  Too busy.  Too tired.  Can't hear myself think!

O. to the M. to the G.

Our family room yesterday, shortly after a good cleaning:

Our living room this afternoon, circa 3PM:

Same room, 6:25:

And at 6:51:

Finally, tonight at 10PM:

The best part is that for the next 48 to 72 hours, we get to live inside a giant 747, thanks to the dozen or so industrial fans the restoration company left with us!  Awesome! 

I would be crying, but I'm too busy laughing at the absurdity of it all.  FIVE DAYS, people.  We've lived here for five days.

Another plumbing emergency!

The house is out to get us!  Dave went to go take a shower this morning and pulled the faucet handle clean off the wall.  We had already decided it needed replacing and it was "on our list", but unfortunately now it's at the top. 

Water flooded the bathroom all the way into the bedroom and as Dave ran around frantically trying to turn the water main off, which neither of us could find it being a new house and all, I slugged trashcan full after trashcan full of water into the tub.  Eventually the water heater emptied and I was able to finally catch up with the flow so that more water was going into the tub than onto the bathroom floor.

Every single towel in our possession is now soaking wet, not to mention all three of the humans present during the disaster.

Home ownership!  Woot!

Firsts

Alex seems to be settling into the new preschool routine fairly well.  The best part is that it's an actual routine, something we've been hard pressed to follow in the past.  As much as I miss him, I'm really enjoying my mornings alone with Genoa.  I can tell she enjoys them too by the lack of constant screaming.  (No one is getting all up in her business or taking her toys every thirty seconds!)  It's nice and it feels good to look forward to picking the boy up after lunch every day.

After school today, we hosted our first (non-family) play date at the house.  My new friend Tana brought her kids over and we had fun chatting while the boys played in the back yard and upstairs in the kids' rooms.  I can't even begin to express how lovely it is to be able to host a play date for a change.  I'm sure all my old friends got so sick of my constantly inviting us over to their houses!  We just never had enough space before.

In anticipation of the play date (and because apparently four days of living in the house is all it took to get dirty), I cleaned like a madwoman this morning.  I'm UBER protective of my new floors to the point that when Genoa threw several hands full of rocks and dirt into the house this afternoon, I got out my vacuum while my company was still over.  WHAT HAVE I BECOME?  (Sorry, Tana!  I promise my crazy will wear off by the next time you guys come over!)

The strangest part is that I spent close to three hours dusting, vacuuming, swiffering and using the new Swedish hard wood floor cleaning system and it did. not. bother me.  I actually enjoyed cleaning my new house.  Let me say that again, I cleaned and I liked it.

Here's the photo set I took before Alex and Genoa destroyed my handiwork:

Sleep training?

Still wondering if we let Genoa cry it out in her new (GREEN) bedroom?

Well, wonder no more.

No problems!

Alex's first day seemed to go just fine.  It's hard to tell since I only got to talk with the teacher's aide, who said he's learning the Montessori rules, which can be hard at first, but he seems to be doing just fine.  Alex didn't have much to say except that he finally noticed the lack of [traditional] toys at school.  He did say he had fun, though, so there's that.  Most importantly, my gut feels great. 

The new house continues to delight and amaze me.  And my butt cheeks, which have decided they personally DESPISE the stairs, or rather, the fact that I insist upon climbing them at least fifty times a day.  Maybe I'll have buns of steel after all.  (HA HA she said while popping another Rolo into her mouth!)  The kids both LOVE the extra space and Alex seems  to really enjoy just playing in his room.

I've written more about the house at The Mom Street Journal.  Dave is bugging me to spend time with him since we have no cable TV yet and he threw away his old ragged computer chair and has no way of sitting in front of his computer.  Tomorrow I get cable tv, new mattresses and hopefully enough time to sit down and write more.

First Day of Montessori

Alex stayed home sick yesterday, so this morning was his first day of school:

Dude, we totally live in a HOUSE

No more apartments for us!

Despite the floors not being finished (at least not to my discriminating satisfaction) until almost 10PM on Sunday night, the move seems to have gone off without a hitch.  Thank god for Angie's List!  Our movers (Thunder Movers for the locals) rocked the house.  They came, kicked butt and moved us into our shiny new house in around 6 hours.  My cousin Amber and her husband and daughter came and helped keep the kids busy so I could direct traffic and they were a huge help.

The only real event happened about five minutes after everyone left for the day.  I came downstairs after nursing the baby to sleep to find the amazon river pouring out of the laundry room onto my brand. new. floors.  Dave and I had just jointly fixed the washer, the cold water had been turned off, and apparently, when we were back there turning it back on, one of the hoses came loose and instead of emptying my dirty wash water into the drain, it emptied all over the floor.

Good times!  We're already off to a rip roaring start as homeowners.

More tomorrow when I (hopefully) no longer wish to perform a self-amputation of my achy feet.  It's Alex's first day of school!

My crazy girl

SCENE ONE:
In Target, early Saturday afternoon, I am rushing around trying to buy supplies to finish painting the magnetic strip in Alex's room on Dave's only day off from work.  Genoa's nap time is looming and she does NOT want to be in the shopping cart, so she is SCREAMING every time I look at her, or if I touch her, or if Alex looks at her, or if Alex touches her.  Ditto for if we WON'T look at her or touch her.  She sounds like evil personified.  Amplified. 

THREE different people stop me to see what is wrong with her.  I say, "She doesn't want to be in the cart."  It seems so OBVIOUS to me, but there's no way I'm letting her down.  She won't let me hold her and if I let her get out and run around, we'll NEVER finish shopping and it will make it that much worse when I have to strap her back in again to go through the check out line.  Not to mention the fact that her shoes are in the car.  The child HATES shoes, so I rarely make her wear them, especially if I know she won't be walking around.

Basically, my strategy is to GET OUT OF TARGET AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.  In other words, people need to leave me alone and let me finish racing through the aisles so I can get the screamer back to the car.  Finally, as she's screaming her way through the check-out lane, the manager approaches us and starts to chat her up.  "Why is this pretty baby so unhappy?!?"  I know she is trying to be helpful, but I can't help but feel judged.  Genoa so often sounds mortally wounded when really, she's just pissed off.  If you've never HAD a Screamer, you think awful thoughts about why those parents aren't doing anything to shut that baby up!  In reality, I let her scream mainly because I want her to learn that she doesn't get what she wants when she screams.

SCENE TWO:
Genoa is notorious for her absolute distaste for music of any kind.  I know!  A baby who hates music!  Who knew!  But seriously, as soon as she could communicate by shaking her head side to side, she would shake it VIOLENTLY if I tried to sing to her or if I put the radio on in the car.  We've tried everything - kid music, jazz, classical, the dump truck CD Alex loves so much, the Cars Soundtrack, EVERYTHING - she hates all of it.  One of our favorite ways to get a laugh these days is to start singing the theme to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  "Turtles in a half shell and they're Gre-ee-een."  She screams, "NOOOOOO!" every time.

So yesterday on our way to Portland, I decide to put the radio on.  I'm still trying to find some local stations that I like (it seems like 8 out of 10 stations here are Christian or Country, which doesn't leave me much to chose from), so I often settle on the classic rock station.  Forgetting that I'd put the radio on the night before on my drive home from working late at the house, when I turn the radio on, it's loud and AC/DC is blasting.

"It's a long way to the top if you wanna rock 'n roll..."

I sneak a peek in the rear view and my baby is rocking out - big grin on her face, banging her head, LOVING it.  Apparently, she doesn't hate music, she just hates that pansy crap we expected her to like.  I'm so tickled by this realization that I can't stop laughing.  I can't wait to break out all my old junior high favorites!

SCENE THREE:
Over the last month or so, I've slowly accepted the idea that Genoa is probably never going to be a good sleeper.  I've given up.  She wins.  Every night we sleep together on an air mattress on her bedroom floor.  When we move into the house on Saturday,we're not even going to bother setting up the crib; we're just going to buy a full-size mattress, so we can continue to sleep together on the floor.   Maybe eventually she'll sleep through the night alone, but at least I'll be comfortable sleeping with her until then.

So early this morning when it's still dark,  Genoa wakes up to nurse and then immediately rolls over and falls back asleep.  A few moments later, she screams, "NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" as loud as I've ever heard her and before the word is all the way out of her mouth, she's instantly asleep again.  Of course I'm wide awake.

There's no shortage of surprises with this one.