the amazing pre-crawling baby!

First things first: I've lost the camera again.

So of COURSE this is the week where Evie has learned how to roll over from tummy to back (she already had back to tummy mastered), to turn in circles on her tummy, and even to manage a bit of frontward and backward scooting. Mostly backward. :D

I'm scouring the house for the camera and will get some video posted just as soon as I find it! I just can't believe that my lil'-tiny baby is sooo close to yet another phase of development. She's getting to be such a big girl!

homeowners!

At 1:59 p.m. today, with my lovely baby girl snoring quietly on me in the rocking chair and my lovely young son snoring loudly on the couch, I got the call that all the paperwork is done and filed, and we are officially homeowners!

WOoooOOOOoooooOOOOO!!!!! :)

Due to the aforementioned napping offsprings, that will have to suffice for cheering at the moment. :D

Where is the house?

We've been working on buying a house for about two months now.... For the last week or two it has been pretty rough. I keep thinking we're all set and then another problem crops up. We were shooting for the 15th as a close date and we're now being told that it may be as late as the 26th or 27th.

I'm not usually a complainer; I prefer to just hold my tongue and work out a way to fix the problem. This time, however, I am really losing my patience! There have been several rounds of repairs, paperwork, etc., needed, and the sellers' realtor has not been the most reliable or responsible with helping to get the sale completed. (Exhibit A: he told us that missing gutters had been replaced, when they hadn't, so we wasted a lot of time having an incomplete repair job re-inspected.... Long story, but I think re-hashing it will just make me grumpy.)

I planted a whole lot of seeds in little pots to give my future veggie garden a head start, and they are now filling up our dining table, getting leggy and dying off one by one. I'm not sure if it's the lack of adequate direct sunlight, the dry air from our heaters, or too much/not enough water, but they are not doing well. I want to get them in the ground as quickly as I can. The weather is finally turning away from winter's constant rain, and I'm told we'll even see sun later this week! Time to get some plants in the ground, just as soon as we have a yard!

We found out today that we may not be in the house by Easter, which was previously my big "consolation prize" after having missed the deadline to move by the 15th. I was looking forward to doing an egg hunt in our new back yard for Jack. Well, I'm hoping we can work something out with the sellers so we can still move in by Easter, even if we haven't officially closed the sale by then.

In summary, and in an attempt to regain some of my usual optimistic outlook:
Yes, the house appraised much lower than our agreed-upon price and that added some time to the negotiations, but thankfully we have motivated sellers. That means we chopped a significant chunk off the price we're paying, instead of losing the sale entirely.
Yes, the bank appraiser is being exceptionally strict on her requirements for certain repairs and upgrades that are needed before we can close, but that means there will be less for us to take care of after we move in.

That's about all I can file in the "optimism" column for now. Time to go to bed. Tomorrow we'll keep working on our gradual packing and hope that we get a firm close date worked out ASAP so we don't end up with everything packed and no place to go. I've already stalled on the packing quite a bit. It's hard to know that you'll be moving within a week or so, and not be able to get things boxed up and ready. However, the difference between moving in 3 or 10 days is rather big, especially when you have two young children to account for!

Is this normal for the house-buying procedure? I feel like most people have a close date, and that is the date they actually close the sale!! Please wish us luck and think happy thoughts about the Bowlings moving SOON!

17/365: Pooka

We haven't mentioned here that we got a new kitty! He showed up in the bushes outside Alex's work. Since he was all black and very loving, we pretty much had to bring him home with us.

A few weeks/months (who's counting?) and a vet trip later, he is a lot bigger than he was in these pictures, but just as much of a troublemaker.

Did I mention this kitty is very good at finding places to snuggle?

It took him about two weeks to realize that the food and water bowls weren't going anywhere. In the meantime we got this balloon kitty, whose belly was always bigger than his head!

Bo gave him a tentative approval to live with us.... but he's NOT going to be friends. We were worried about Bo being mean to him, but it turns out that Pooka is the bully.

Here is Pooka "to scale" next to some of Jack's toys. He really was a tiny kitty when he came to us!

His favorite part about being domesticated? This particular spot on the couch, which he naps in at least twice daily. :)

school for Jack!

While I worked part-time at Delphian recently, Jack got to go to "school" in the nursery for staff/faculty kids. Well, my gig ended, so I had to take him out of that group. However, he had been having such a good time doing mornings at school, and learning SO much (he can count to six! sometimes all the way to ten!).... we decided we had to find another daycare for him to play at.

Enter Little Learners, a totally cute preschool facility about 10 minutes away from us. When we went for a visit, he jumped right into "Circle Time," which is when they sit in a group and read books, talk about toys, and other stuff like that. He didn't even care whether I was in the room!

Yesterday was his first day. They did a ton of activities, and (no surprise, considering how busy he had been) he fell right asleep at nap time. He had such a good time that on the way home he told me, "had fun. Had fun! Had fun," for almost five straight minutes!

So, with Jack in school three mornings per week, I am going to be working part-time (to pay for the daycare, essentially) at TTR with Alex! This is definitely a new phase of life for us all. It's proving to be very hectic, but very rewarding!

life does change, doesn't it?

I looked at the blog today and realized I haven't posted anything for a month! Well, February was a busy one....

What happened was that I agreed to help a friend of mine with her maternity leave (she works at Delphi). She was due at the end of February, but the baby decided he was ready at the beginning of the month! I've been (hectically, but happily) running ever since!

I don't think it's worth trying to write a lengthy summary of what we've been up to the past month. Suffice it to say, I have been checking students' literature papers again (so enjoyable!) while Jack has been having tons of fun at "school" -- a co-op nursery for kids whose parents work at the school. They practice the alphabet, counting, colors, and so on.... He is eating it up!

I'm not sure if it's because of school or just because of Jack's age, but the watchword for our interactions has really been "adaptability". He is always surprising me with something new! I thought I'd share two funny things that happened today:

Exhibit A:

At tonight's bedtime, Jack was intermittently asking for "blanket, blanket!" (Which can mean he's asking for a physical blanket, or to be tucked in.) Well, he had two blankets in his bed and when I first tried to tuck him in he wouldn't lay down. Therefore, no tucking-in blanket! And the rule is that once he's in his room for bedtime, that's it. We will come help him if he's hungry or thirsty, but no more.

Well, this time he was being pretty darn civilized in his request, and he kept asking when I told him his blankets were in his bed. He was coming to the door and politely trying again at about five-minute intervals, but starting to get upset that I wasn't responding. After a while I thought, This doesn't have the normal bedtime avoidance flavor. Hmmm.... so I came over to his door and said, "blanket, huh?"

To which he nodded and let out a watery, relieved giggle. "Blanket!"

"It's really that important?"

Vigorous nodding and a wobbly "Yeah!"

Well, shoot. If he's going to say "yeah," for the first time.... I couldn't resist, even if he was conning me! So I tucked him in nice and snug. He was happy as can be, and out within two minutes!

Well. Apparently he is REALLY doing big-boy bedtime now!

Exhibit B:

We went to Lowes with Alex while he picked up some stuff for work. Jack and I wandered over to the gardening section while Alex was looking at plumbing fixtures and boring stuff like that. First thing I know when we reach the gardening section, Jack pulls a watering can off the shelf and tells me "spout" -- while pointing to the right bit.

"Wow!" I say, "that's right!"

All business, he points to the handle. "Ahn-doo," he says. Pretty good for someone who hasn't mastered "h" or "l" yet!

I am grinning like an idiot at this point. "Like a teapot!" I exclaim, figuring it out. (They sing "I'm a little teapot" at school sometimes.)

He grins at me and tips the watering can over.

We sat there and sang "I'm a little teapot" four times before he allowed that we could move on, and he was SO happy.

What I've really concluded from these events (and many others) is that the biggest thing you can do for your kids is to understand that they are growing up quickly, and to expect these ridiculously grown-up, surprising or "advanced" things to appear all the time - because for every time he throws a toy with an angry yell, chews on something he shouldn't, or takes a swing at someone (something picked up from school, which he is testing) there is also a time when he offers to shake hands when he meets someone, helps to do the laundry, or reveals that he knows a good dozen letters in the alphabet!

How much nicer for both of us to focus on the grown-up parts. I'm sure it invites more of them; he looks so proud when we notice he did something well and praise him for it. :)

Where have those Bowlings gotten to, anyway?

Well, November was a busy, busy month. Alex has been hard at work, of course, and I wrote two books!

I was hired to write a non-fiction book, which I completed. I also did NaNoWriMo and won! However, that just means I wrote 50,000 words on the project. It still has a ways to go before it is done though -- maybe 75,000 more words for the first draft to be complete!

As soon as November and the books were over, I started madly trying to catch up with everything I had been ignoring for the month. Laundry, vacuuming, dishes, scrubbing everything that I'd been ignoring all month.... We also took a trip down to Tennessee for Alex's grandpa Jack's funeral. (More on that later, in a separate post.) And then it was time to start in on the parade of Christmas cookies and shopping for presents.

Sheesh! It's a wonder I'm here only 2 1/2 weeks into December! Anyway, I have a ton of pictures that I was at least able to take during November, so I will be trying to get them all posted and caught up by January.

For now, it is time to put Jack to bed. But I'll be back!

excitement!

Holy smokes! Jack just jumped! Like, both feet in the air, at the same time, and ON PURPOSE! He is soooooooo exhilarated! He had to run ten laps up and down the apartment just to work off the initial surge of excitement :D

ten months old

Jack is finally at the longer-out-than-in milestone. This is pretty important!

He weighs 20 pounds and is 2 1/2 feet tall. Wow! Right now he's occupying himself by "cooking" on the kitchen floor -- using a frying pan, a small pot with lid, a whisk and a potato masher. He's very diligent! One of these days I'm sure a custard or something will appear. :)

He now spends his days cooking, organizing (an activity in which many things find their way to the floor), investigating the many doors and making sure they open and close correctly, throwing and chasing his balls (the racquetball is his favorite) and taking at least one long walk per day. We frequently go to the library so he can charm the librarians!

He also likes to do chores, to feed snacks to me and Alex, and to brush my teeth at bedtime. He makes sure we're taken care of properly! He is also capable of giving me a really stern lecture, complete with arched back, furrowed brow, and gutteral, disapproving syllables, if I'm doing something wrong like making him wait until his daddy is awake before it's romp-on-Daddy time.

He can say da-da, kitty, doggy, and mommmm (with a growly bit at the end). And yesterday he revealed that he can say "go go go go go go go!" because I was taking too long getting ready for our shopping trip!

The point being, of course, that if all this has happened in ten months, we have a hell of a ride coming up! :D

baby bear update

Jack is now saying "dada," "doggy," and "kitty". (Okay, so he says "gitty," but Ks are hard!) AND yesterday he figured out that he knows how to stand up on his own. He's been doing it for a while (3 weeks, at least) but he didn't know he could, and would fall over if he noticed he was unsupported. Go, baby, go! I feel like I'm almost not allowed to call him a baby any more!

PS -- I know I'm shamefully behind on posting. I am trying soo hard to motivate myself to catch up, and will be trying to post a couple of things per day for the next few weeks. (Literally, that's how much content I have to catch up on!)

Donations accepted!

We are slooowly saving up for our eventual return to Oregon. Anybody want to help us along? Alex has a PayPal account if you want to send funds! :D

On this topic, I was filling out one of those store surveys recently, which offered a $1000 gift card to WalMart, and I always think "What could I possibly USE this for?" but I realized that it could be practically a whole apartment of furnishings. Okay, universe, we're ready for our payout!

We survived the ice storm!

We lost power on Thursday night, in what may end up being the winter's most spectacular storm. Out of 500,000 paying electicity customers in NH, 400,000 lost power! Some folks (like a woman Alex works with at Visiting Geeks) won't be getting their power back until Christmas!

On Friday it was 60 degrees in the apartment by 11:00 AM, and dropping, with no sign of returning power. I had thawed out a nice big half-turkey to roast on Friday and make a feast with, but we had no oven AND no refrigerator to keep it fresh! We packed up and headed for Massachusetts, to our brother-in-law Bobby's house, taking the turkey feast to pay for our room and board. :)

We had a lovely feast with Bobby, Alison, and all five Webber children, and came back home on Saturday to find that there was still no power, and our apartment was so cold, the thermostat couldn't even register the temperature! We grabbed all the food that was still good, wished the cats luck, and headed back down to Bobby's until Monday, which was when the rumor mill said we'd be getting power back.

Fast-forward through a weekend of fun and mayhem with Jack, Caiden and Rebecca, and here we are home again at last! We have to go grocery shopping to re-stock our fridge, but otherwise, we came through the whole episode just fine. :)

4 1/2 weeks to go.... status report! :)

We got a special information packet from our Doc appointment today that basically was prep for the final weeks --phone numbers to call at any time, things we should or shouldn't feel like we need to call in about, reminders of actual labor signs.... good stuff!

I also got my last blood drawn today, which is definitely cause for celebration! This one was for a final check of my iron levels, which should be fine, since I was barely under the borderline of okay at the last draw (39.9 when they like to see at least 40.0, I think), and have been taking iron supplements since.

Alex and I are working on getting things all squared away for the baby's arrival. At some point we realized that although the due date is in four weeks, it's not uncommon to have the baby arrive up to 3 weeks early, so we want to be ready just in case!

We found out that we do have a storage space up in the attic of our apartment building, so we've been making a lot more room for baby stuff down here in the living space, and carting the extras up to hide for a while. (For instance, we probably aren't going to need 7 suitcases any time soon!)

I am starting to make some pre-made meals that we can freeze up and have ready for when the baby comes home. I figure that if the baby is late, we can just eat them and make more so the food doesn't get old and funky, but I do want to have some meals ready from now on just in case.

I am possibly going to start taking Zantac (over the counter heartburn medicine) before bed for the final stretch here, since I am now regularly waking up with WICKED acid reflux about every 45 minutes. Dr. Browne is a bit concerned that I am now burning away my esophageal lining, and I'm inclined to agree. It's been at least three months of this nonsense escalating more and more, and Tums is just not getting the job done anymore. I'm getting acid reflux more and more frequently and strongly, even during the day when I am fully upright and haven't eaten anything in hours.... Aside from the fact that it HURTS, how am I supposed to finish growing a baby when I can't sleep because my throat is always burning up?

The baby shower had to stop being a secret, since there were just too many variables to be scheduled in, so I know it's coming this weekend. (Yay!) By the end of this weekend, we will have all the baby goodies ready to be settled in to the house (and will know what remaining items we need to get).

Chris and I have FINALLY settled on colors and styles for the cloth diapers she is setting me up with, so that's good! I think they are going to work out well. Also, we realized that it is perfectly do-able to wash the diaper inserts in the dishwasher, which is much more cost-effective for those of us who don't own our own washer and dryer. (Don't worry, you can totally keep it sanitary between dishes and diapers --or maybe just handwash dishes. Haven't quite decided on that one yet!)

I feel like we're way too ahead of the game on this. What (massive element, probably) are we forgetting???

Med Legal --hired!

Okay, so they hired me! I'm working on my first official case today.

The thing about the cases is that since I'm working with people's Real Live Medical Info, I can't say much (anything at all) about them. If I did come up with something pricelessly fascinating, I'd have to totally scrub it down for confidentiality, including the fact that it was from Med Legal in the first place... so I probably won't bother. Sorry. :P

AWESOME :)

As of about 15 minutes ago, I am starting training to do a from-home editing job. Woo!! :)

I have to get through all the training before they permanently hire me, but they like me and I like them, and I'm getting a password to the website.... and so on. And I know they're legit because my friend Rachel was working for them before I came along.