Operation Bigger House: Inside the Original House

I took some pictures of the inside of our house as it is right now so that this project will be fully documented. Unfortunately, I don't have a good Before picture of the old pink bathroom, but here are a couple of good looks at it's pinkness.

Ella's first interaction with tampons. Oh, and the pink floor.

This hilarious picture shows the original pink tile floor. I didn't necessarily hate this tile, but it had a lot of wear and tear. What you cannot see behind Ella (circa 14ish months) is that the majority of the tiles in the threshhold are cracked or broken. We ended up pulling them up entirely once she was crawling because she kept picking them out of the floor and carrying them around the house. When we put the house on the market earlier this year (because Plan A was to sell it and buy a bigger one), Dave caulked them back down so that it looked all nice and put together, just in time for Luke to start crawling and picking them out of the floor.

The picture also shows the old bathroom doors. Those were upgraded, as part of my perfect Christmas present in 2009 - when all I asked for were doors that opened and shut without the full weight of my body behind the effort.


Ella, circa 9 months, in the very pink bathtub.


This picture is also of Ella (Why don't I have any bathtub pictures of Luke? Oh, that's right, because mangaging two kids in a tub is lot more work than one.),  in the pink bathtub. Note the pink tile around the tub as well; it covered the walls up to chest height. The sink was pink to match the tub, the counter was the same tile as the floor. The cabinet was painted white - but the chipped places revealed the secret that it used to be pink, too. Above the tile on the walls was a beige and pink flowered wallpaper with a border.

All of that is gone now. The only thing left in that room is the disgusting light fixture (which will be replaced) and the closet with it's new door. It looks like this now.

Bathroom- unpinked.

This picture is from the doorway, looking into the corner where the tub used to be. Dave's new closet is right behind the wall you see in this picture.


We have picked out the tub, vanity, toilet, and floor tile for this makeover but I still haven't settled on a paint color. There will not be any tile on the wall this go round.

Bathroom from where the tub used to be.

This is the bathroom from where the tub used to be. See the nice new door? I love my new doors. (I know that they aren't really new anymore since Dave gave them to me 2 years ago, but they still feel new to me. They still make me squeal inside sometimes when I admire them.)

Ella is content to shower all by herself now, and I am content to let her. She uses our shower in the current "master bath", and she even bathes, with soap and a rag and everything. A couple of times a week, I reach in there and scrub her head for her, and that's all I have to do to keep her clean. She loves showering so much , she will sit in there and play for 45 minutes. While she had the stomach virus, she asked to shower every time her fever spiked - 4 times in one day.

Luke in the temporary tub.

Given that bit of goodness, I really only have to worry about scrubbing Luke these days. I know he misses the bathtub, especially since he had just gotten to have it to himself. He was really enjoying swimming on his stomach and blowing bubbles with his face in the water, but he is an adaptable child so he's making do with this situation for now. As long as I keep him out of the knives, he's good to go with drowning the entire kitchen and watching Mickey Mouse through the space over the stove.




 



 The kids' bedroom.



This is a picture of the bedroom the kids have shared since I moved Luke out of the Arms-Reach co-sleeper beside my bed. See that terribly scary piece of plywood on the wall? That used to be a window. There was another one beside it as well. Those windows are now in "the nook" in the new master bedroom. The new laundry room is directly on the other side of that wall now. I took this picture from what will be the new doorway to this room. It will be Ella's because she cannot fathom the thought of changing rooms at this stage in her life. She has plans for it to be purple, and she has already picked out her bedding, rug, and lamp.

Frame for the new hallway.

This is the frame for the new hallway, and the plywood that covers what used to be the other window and what will soon be the opening to the new part of the house.

Ella finds the room completely terrifying in it's present state - so terrifying that she cannot go in there alone. Luke, on the other hand, enjoys playing loudly in there to hear his echo in the absence of furniture. Over the weekend he mastered balancing on the 2x4 on the floor.

The Big Room dressed as their temporary bedroom.

This is where they are sleeping for the present - our Big Room. If you look past the bedroom in the middle of it, you might be able to see that it is usually a combination sitting room/dining room. Ella dubbed it The Big Room some time ago because it has a lot of wide open space for playing, especially since we pushed all of the furniture against the walls for just that purpose.

One of the things I'm looking forward to the most is having this room put back together again - sans toys.

From the opposite side of The Big Room.

 
And this is a view of the play portion of the room. Most of the toys that are in there today will go into Luke's new room (our current bedroom). He loves the little kitchen and Ella rarely plays with it anymore, so I'm putting it in his room.
 
I'm okay with the current situation for a little while longer, but I'm really hoping to have The Big Room cleaned up in time for Christmas. This is where we put our tree, and I'm trying to rest peacefully in the belief that that will happen this year, too.
 
As for the addition, the duct work for the heating and air went in last week and that's about all that happened. There was an inspection today, so the hanging of the drywall should commence shortly. I look forward to a lot more progress this week.

Operation Bigger House: It's Starting to Look Like a House

I'm way overdue for this update since it's been three weeks since the last one. That means we are six weeks into our project, and it's really starting to look like a house.

These are my most recent pictures (and I need to take some newer ones).


From the approximate location of the tree.



You can see that the addition is becoming a part of the house now. Last week they finished the roof and put in the windows and doors, so it actually looks even more like a house than this pictures shows.

The single square window you see will be over the bathtub. There will be a bathtub, that holds water, deep enough for me, and there will be a second hot water heater to fill that sucker up to the rim.

I cannot wait to sit in a bathtub again. The tub in the pink bathroom was dead to me. There wasn't enough hot water to fill it up, and what I did put in there slowly leaked down the drain before I was finished soaking. It worked well enough for the kids, but I gave up on having a bath in there a long time ago.

The double windows are in what we affectionately refer to as "the nook." It will be a sitting area of some sort, though we haven't decided yet which furniture will go in that space. These windows were previously in the back wall of the kids' bedroom.


From the edge of the patio


The doorway you see in this picture (with the gangplank) is a french door that will open onto a deck. The deck will connect to the existing patio, or something. We have a team of designers working on that situation. We do not currently utilize our backyard space to it's full potential, so we are trying to make it more livable. The main issue is that we don't have direct access from the house to the backyard, but that will change with our new french doors.





Looking into the basement


The small window you see in this picture has actually been moved closer to the old part of the house. Due to an oversight on our part, it was originally cut into the wall of what will be my walk-in closet. We discussed and discussed, with each other and our consultant, Pop the Pop, and decided to just go ahead and ask them to move it. It is now located in the new laundry room - which is where I really wanted it to be all along.  This window was previously in the pink bathroom.

The basement wall is finished and there is a double-door in place. That means that there is also now a hole in the existing basement wall to connect the old part to the new part!


View of the bedroom from the hallway


This is the view of our bedroom from the new hallway. To the right of "the nook," you can see part of the master bathroom, including the shower.

The hole to connect the new hallway to the old part of the house isn't finished yet. They did cut it and frame the new hall way through the kids' bedroom last week, but it's covered with plywood for now. The kids' bedroom will be Ella's new bedroom when this is all finished, and it sacrificed two windows and about 4 feet of space to the addition. Still, it's a very decent sized bedroom.



View of the bedroom from the "nook"



This is the view from "the nook." You can see the old wall of the house, and those pieces of plywood are where the windows were previously. From this perspective, Dave's closet is on the right, then the hallway, the laundry room, and my closet is on the left. I can see the opening for the door to my closet, but you might not be able to since you are not intimate with this project (as I am).

Watching the framing of this addition has been really cool. I could see it in my head before, just from studying the floor plan, but seeing the walls go up was like watching that floor plan go from one-dimensional to three-dimensional in Auto-CAD. So neat.


View of the yard from the future site of my bed.


And this is the view from our bed - or rather, where our bed will be, eventually.

You can see Jewel E. Cat walking the gangplank in this picture. She is so much trouble. This entire project she has supervised the men all day long and she has conducted a full inspection every evening when they leave. Before the roof was framed, she followed us from room to room, walking on top of the walls while we did our inspection.

Last week, that fun all came to and end when they finished the roof. I assume she picked out a good location, from a high vantage point, like she has done every day - in the rafters. And I assume that the noise from the nail guns above her was just too much because she lost her composure and could not get up the nerve to jump down again. I ended up climbing a ladder, coaxing her close enough so that I could grab her by the scruff of the neck, and dropping her between the 2x4s. Dave was holding the ladder for me, and all I had to say was, "Move!" He knew what was about to happen. I couldn't carry her down with me because she was a veritable buzz saw, all legs and claws, so I just lowered her as far as I could and released. She landed on all four, like a good cat should do, and high-tailed it out of there. I was happy to see her serenely lounging on the porch all the next day.

Since these pictures were taken, there has been plumbing, electrical, and heating and air work done inside the addition. Our old pink bathroom was gutted down to the studs (the day the whole family go the evil stomach virus), and the hall was framed out in the kids' old bedroom. I'll get more pictures this week of all that good stuff. The kids have embraced their temporary home in The Big Room, and I just try not to look in there when I pass by. It's a disaster, but we are so lucky to have a room big enough to hold a full sized mattress, a crib mattress, two chairs with matching ottomans, two end tables, a dining room table, a china cabinet, a sideboard, an old cabinet sewing machine, a play kitchen, a dollhouse, a McDonald's drive-thru, and two Little Tykes coupes, so I'm not complaining too much.

The Octopus and the Pumpkin

Happy Halloween, ya'll! I'm happy to report that this year went much better than last, up to and including this moment.

She fell asleep with the Anti-Mommy

Whoa.

This year, they were benign creatures, just as I promised myself. Ella chose her own costume - a pumpkin, and just to be safe, I made it myself with a happy face. She generally had her happy face on all evening. (Much credit to the fact that Daddy didn't paint his face this year, I'm sure.)

Luke went as an octopus, and while that could be perceived as begging for trouble, it felt safe enough since he already is an octopus.

Pumpkin Girl and Octopus Boy (and Jewel E. Cat)

We trick-or-treated the town, played at the Fall Festival at church, then passed out candy at Grandma and Pop the Pop's house. I really think Ella might like passing out candy even more than trick-or-treating for it. They both ate more candy than should be allowed in one evening.

There was vomit, but it was contained and we didn't let it ruin the evening. (It seems that the wicked stomach virus of last week wreaked all kinds of havoc on my reflux babies and they are still not back to normal. Ella is puking like she did before we re-medicated her for reflux. She'll be getting Zantac on top of her normal Prevacid for the next two weeks to get her back on track. Hopefully. It tastes so nasty, it's the reason she puked this evening.)

I just love this picture. It makes me think Ella was right, we should have given him some "black water" to squirt like ink while he was running away from us. She really, really wanted to add that element to his costume. I'm sure he would have complied.

The perfect octopus picture.

The Vomit Chronicles: My Washer and Dryer are Asking for a Raise

We are on day 5 of what might be the nastiest stomach virus I've ever seen. It's certainly the nastiest one I've dealt with as a parent.

Luke started throwing up Saturday night. That continued most of the day Sunday, and I thought he was recovered Monday. I was wrong. As Dave phrased it, he "reversed it" with a diaper so disgusting it necessitated a wardrobe change. Then he threw up again. At the same time this was happening, Dave sent me a message to say that he had it, too. He never catches what we have, so the fact that he got it before I did told me how bad it really was.

I knew, just by the number of times I'd been puked on, that I was destined for it. It started Monday night, and I was sick all night long and most of Tuesday. On top of that, I could barely stand up without feeling faint. After strategizing about how I would survive the day and take care of my children, I decided Grandmother was the best option since she had already been puked on. Thankfully, she was here all day Tuesday, because I couldn't even fix a sippy cup without needing to lay down.

Ella started puking in the wee hours of Tuesday morning, ran fever all day and kept her food down until the sun went down. Then she threw up most of the night last night. Once she needed a full change of bedding and clothing, and I considered putting her in the shower. After I got all of that sorted out and laid back down in bed with her, knowing that the easiest way to deal with all night vomit would be to sleep beside her and catch it in a bowl (yes, that is another great use for Tupperware), I smelled nasty poop.

Soundly sleeping Luke had pooped so big that he needed a change of bedding and clothing as well. I almost got that done with waking him, but not quite. Once I finally got everyone back to sleep, I settled into Ella's bed with a flat pillow and two pillow pets. So I still feel like I've been beaten with a tire iron, only today it's not because of fever, but because of pillow pets.

I'm so ready for this to be over. Ella is still puny; just laying on the couch under a blanket. I'm certain we have another full day to go. Grandmother has it now, and possibly worse than the rest of us.

Did I mention that this is the week when construction starts inside our house? That the kids are sleeping in the dining room and one of our bathrooms is gutted down to the studs?

It's been really fun, and I'm sure that my washer and dryer are just as ready as I am for it to be over. They've barely stopped working since Sunday morning.

At this point, I'm just praying that the dog doesn't catch it.

Luke the Ladykiller

I worked from home Friday so I had the pleasure of picking the kids up from preschool. As I made my way to Ella's classroom, I passed by a little girl about Luke's age, toddling down the hall. She attracted my attention primarily because she looked to be about his age with her cute toddler swagger. Then I moved on to Ella's room, gathered up her stuff, made sure she pottied, etc. On the way back down the hall, we stopped to get Luke.

And that's when his teacher informed me that he'd been kissing a girl.

The little girl I saw on my way in, to be exact. We'll call her Anna.

Apparently, he kissed her twice - on the cheek and on the head. When I asked him about it, calling her by name, he gave me a sly look out of the corner of his eye.

I also found out over the weekend, from his big sister, that he pushes Anna in the swing in their classroom and the reason he wanted to wear Ella's bow in his hair is because Anna wears hair bows just like it.

So.

Truthfully, he is so freely affectionate that it doesn't surprise me that he loves on his friends at school. And truthfully, he's the only boy in his class, so of course it was a girl he was kissing. But I still think it's funny, and I love that he has a friend.

Co-sleeping Pros and Cons

We are modified co-sleepers. That's a term I just made up. It means, the kids start the night in their own beds, but I bring Luke to our bed when he wakes up to nurse during the night. We get to wake up together most mornings, and that's when co-sleeping is the most fun (in my opinion). Lots of times, Ella is with us, too, or we are in her bed (as we were this morning because she was having nightmares in the wee hours).

As Luke and I struggled to decide if we were going to be awake or asleep this morning, a few things happened that formulated into a pros and cons list  in my head. I am going to present them in the way I learned in college: pro, con, pro.

Pro: Snuggly little bodies.
Con: Leaky diapers.
Pro: Sleep talking and laughing.
Con: Numb hands from cuddling the weight of the baby's head your arm pit all night.
Pro: Baby head smell.
Con: Fighting over the covers. He always kicks them off.
Pro: Baby snores.
Con: Baby fingers exploring every orifice of your head. There's nothing like waking up with a little finger in your nose.
Pro: Lazy baby chatter.
Con: Baby chatter. Sometimes I just need to keep sleeping.
Pro: Being right there when they wake up scared - the whole reason we were in Ella's bed. Poor kid.
Con: Possessive little legs that keep finding their way around you. Ella's legs act independently of the rest of her body while she sleeps.
And finally, my favorite one of all:
Pro: The sleepy grin and the sweet, "Mama. Mama." when Luke realizes that I'm awake, too. It reminds me to soak up every single minute with them.

Operation Bigger House: The Basement

I'm a little slow with this update because, quite frankly, the movement of a pile of dirt from here to there is not much of an update. And, there's the small issue that I wasn't really home during the daylight hours until Friday of last week to take new pictures. But enough excuses.. here's what's happened since the my last update.

We have an almost-basement!


Basement walls.


Once the hole for the basement was finished, the washing machine drain re-routed, the footers poured, and some of the dirt pile distributed to the low spots in our backyard (making it a vast expanse of red dirt, but whatever), an eighteen-wheeler load of concrete blocks showed up last Monday morning. Two days later the walls were complete.



Waterproofing

Then a load of gravel was delivered and part of it was spread as the beginning of the basement floor. At that point, there was some waiting for a termite pre-treatment and an inspection/survey that was required by the county.

During the waiting, the lower half of the basement walls were waterproofed and a French drain was installed around the perimeter (I forgot to take a picture of that, sorry.). Yesterday was Columbus Day, and apparently that's a county holiday, so we didn't get the official blessing to pour the basement floor and finish the upper portion of the walls yet. However, there was a sheet of plastic and a layer of wire (like you might use to build a goat pen) put down over the gravel. That was yesterday. I also had a visit from the carpentar yesterday (I was working from home); he just came by to check it out.


Looking through the basement door


It is my understanding that both the cement man and the carpentar are just waiting for the go-ahead to swoop in and complete the next phase in this project, and they would have started yesterday (stinking holiday).

On the inside, we (Dave) cleaned out the basement closet that will be the access to the new space. That hole hasn't been cut in the wall yet because we don't fancy the thought of unsecured access to our belongings, but it will be on the other side of that sheet of plywood you see stuck to the wall in this picture (looking through the basement door).  This new basement space will remain unfinished so that Dave will have a place for his lawnmower and tools.




Piles of sand and gravel



Finally, here are the piles of sand and gravel, just waiting to be put to good use. 

That about covers weeks 2 and 3 of this project.







Candy Bookends

Does this look like we've been trick-or-treating?

Ella's parade loot

We haven't. October is a month that starts and ends with candy in our little town. Ella collected this bucket full at the Fire Prevention Parade over the weekend. It was her idea to bring her Spiderman Easter basket to hold all the candy, but I have to say that I was amazed at the amount she (we) collected. I don't know what we are going to do with it, but I know that we will not be eating all of it. It will disappear before we fill up two more buckets trick-or-treating in town and at the Fall Festival on Halloween.

 

Side note - Look how tan she is? Who gets a Fall tan?

 

We spent a lot of time outside because it was beautiful, and Dave traded cameras with me so I have some pictures to share. 

Luke with Ella's new cup

 

 

Luke took the first opportunity to steal Ella's new cup, and you can see her in the background, on her way to retrieve it. She is very possessive of her new cup, which she picked out on our "girl time" shopping trip Saturday after the parade. Our main mission was new tennis shoes for her, and after trying on seveal pair of light-up, sequined atrocities, we found some cute pink New Balances. They were comfortable enough to win her over in the first step she took in them.

 






 
 

Swinging on their playground



Both kids love to swing, so we spent quite a bit of time swinging over the weekend. I had to raise Ella's swing up another link because her toes were dragging the ground.

This is the part of our backy-ard that isn't torn up with construction right now. (An update on that project is coming soon.)


Luke on the lawn mower




"What are you doing on my lawnmower?"


Luke cannot stay off of the lawnmower when we are playing oustide. He basically loves anything with a steering wheel, but he especially loves the lawnmower because Dave drives him around the neighborhood on it.

Driving like a mad man



Hangin' out

Finally, I found Luke like this after we'd come inside for a break Saturday afternoon. He was just hanging out on the end table, looking at a picture of Pop the Pop.

 

He's shirtless because Ella sprayed him with the water hose while she was washing all of the front yard toys.  

Pumpkin Patch 2011

This year's trip to the Pumpkin Patch was a huge success. Ella knew what to expect so she was ready to love it. Luke just loved it.


Ready to go




Luke didn't nap before we left, or on the way, or while we were there. He knew we were going to do somthing fun.

I couldn't get them both to cheese for the camera at the same time. Every time Ella said cheese, Luke turned to laugh at her.


Pumpkin socks for the Pumpkin Patch




Ella picked out her pumpkin socks for the trip. I think this made it a little easier for her to wear her tennis shoes. She's a flip flop kind of girl (so much that I'm probably going to have to hide them when it really gets cold).


Pony Ride



I walked beside her pony, named Pickles, so she would be comfortable and so Luke could get a could look at them. He kept calling them dog-dogs and barking. I tried to get him to say, "Horsey!" but he just moo-ed instead.

We did see a miniature cow at the petting farm. And a llama, goats, sheep, and piglets. The piglets were raising a squealy ruckus, and I think they scared Luke because he sat down hard and cried about it. Otherwise, he loved all the animals and the goats especially loved him. Ella had fun feeding all of them.


We all loved the bounce house this year.




We all jumped in the bounce houses and slid down the big slide. The slide that caused a colossal melt down last year was a blast this year. I slid with Ella four times, Dave did it 2 or 3. She loved it and she was strong enough this year to climb up the big ladder by herself. Dave carried Luke up and slid down with him. We think he liked it, but he really looked stunned when they landed.


On the way to find our pumpkins




By the time we rode out to the pumpkin patch, we were all tired.


Searching, searching for the perfect one.




I love this picture. I love how it shows the progression of our family since last year.















Two prize winning pumpkins.



Here we are with our prize pumpkins. Ella was able to surpass last year's and find one even smaller. It is so small that Dave had to pick it of the vine for her.

As I expected, Luke went with a bigger one. He loves them both and keeps trying to eat them. Ella has already told me that both pumpkins will be staying in her bedroom again this year. We aren't allowed to cut them. I guess Dave and I will have to get our own if we decided we need to carve one.

My Personal War with Roaches

I'll preface this story by saying that I am not afraid of roaches. They creep me out with their slithery-ness, but I don't feel the need to jump up on the furniture and squeal. I have no trouble stomping on every one I see. I’m just so very tired of the nasty things. With that said, and in fairness to my husband, I must tell this story. It ranks up there with snake killing and bird invasions.

I believe Dave and I have come to a point in our relationship where we have lived together long enough that we are beginning to act like one another. Last night, after the kids were in bed and I’d woken up from my power nap with Ella, we were sitting on the couch together. As is our usual habit, he was lying on one end and I was sitting on the other, legs tangled up in the middle, sharing a quilt. Oddly, last night we were both awake and talking, though I have no idea what about because the events that followed completely erased it from my mind.

As we were chatting, I noticed a big, nasty, flying roach slither through the crack in the front door and make its way up the wall. I considered getting up to kill it right then, but I didn’t want to interrupt Dave, and I’d just gotten comfortable. Dave had no idea it was there because his back was to it. For about fifteen minutes, as we chatted, I tracked its progress all around the crown molding, on top of a picture, and back down the wall.

This is the point where my husband and I swapped personalities.

Suddenly, it launched itself into the air and flew right over Dave’s shoulder and landed on his chest. He exclaimed in surprise, but I was ready. As it was 10:30 and there was nary a flip-flop in sight, I grabbed the rolled up Neighbors magazine from my end table and attempted to smack the life out of it. Again, Dave exclaimed, this time about how hard I hit him. I heard nothing of it; I was singularly focused on killing that blasted roach.

It had disappeared.

I jumped off the couch and ripped the quilt off of Dave, yelling, “It’s in the blanket! Get up! It’s in the blanket!” I have no idea what he said, but he got up.

I kicked the ottoman out of the way and frantically shook the blanket until the roach fell out. Then I took to smacking it with my rolled up magazine. Like a mad woman, I was chasing it around the floor, hitting it for all I was worth, and cursing it with words that aren’t appropriate for writing here. I think it got the message that I believed it to be a piece of something undesirable. All the while, I think Dave was in the kitchen, eating popcorn and watching the show.

Then it disappeared again.

At that point, I lost my composure (if you could say I ever had any). I was squealing and jumping around with hands flailing, screaming for Dave to find it while I ran to the other side of the room. I was terrified that it was going to fly again and land on me.

He calmly moved the chair and grabbed it with a paper towel, while I continued to ask repeatedly if he had found it yet. He held up his fist to show me the balled up paper towel, roach inside. With a sigh of relief, I went back to my spot on the couch.

And this is where we swapped back to our original selves with me watching, and him holding the paper towel roach ball and asking me, “What am I supposed to do with it?”

I said, “Throw it away.”

To which he replied, “It will just crawl out again.”

Uhhh. “What?! It’s not dead? You didn’t kill it?”

He understood his responsibility. He squeezed it in his man fist and said, “I just heard it crunch.”

Again, I breathed a sigh of relief, “Good, as with anything with an exoskeleton, crunching is good.” (I don’t really know if roaches have exoskeletons, but they do crunch when you defeat them.)

He threw it away and left the room, and I started to laugh. He came back and asked me if I was laughing at myself. Yes, yes I was. Then he said, “My favorite part was when you changed from mad killer into our screaming 3 year old.” I could not deny it.

Luke's First Injury



Luke's first injury

 Given his fall down the stairs, his love for climbing, his new affinity for jumping on the furniture, and his fierce independence, I've already started preparing myself for the idea that Luke will be our kid that breaks limbs and needs stitches. There are emergency room trips in his future. I know it in my bones.

This morning, he got his first official injury, meaning, one that left a mark.

 Every morning when we leave the house, he walks across the porch and down the stairs by himself. He's like a horse at the starting gate, bursting out of the front door when I open it. He stops along the way to greet all of the statue animals, and by the time I've put the bags in the car, he's coming down the stairs. He is very careful, coming down sideways so he can hang on to the railing with both hands. I'm usually there to grab him at the bottom so I can put him in his carseat.

This morning, just as I turned around to get him from the steps, I saw him fall from the bottom step onto the driveway. On his face. He was wearing pants today, and I think his foot got caught in his pants leg, tripping him up. I knew from the landing that it hurt, and then he started to cry. I scooped him up and got a close enough look to know there was blood, so we headed back into the house to clean it up.

He was crying hard, so I sat on the toilet and nursed him while I wiped his face with a warm rag to clean off the dirt and blood. That calmed him down enough that he tried to get out of my lap as I put Neosporin on the scrapes. By the time we headed back out to the car, he was well enough to slide down my leg and toddle across the porch and down the steps all by himself.

He has a scrape next to his eyebrow, under his eye, and on the corner of his nose. I can't tell yet if it's going to be a nasty bruise, but it already looks pretty pitiful - especially with those sad eyes and that puffed out lip. I'm pretty sure he's going to work this for all it's worth.

Operation Bigger House: It's Begun

With the big tree gone, work on our home addition officially started last week. The first day, two saw horses showed up in the yard. The second day, a trailer full of scaffolding appeared. The third day, the fence came down and bricks started disappearing. The fourth day, the air conditioner was moved. The fifth day, all of the brick and the basement window was gone, and the outline of the addition was spray painted on the grass.

Disappearing bricks

Pile o' bricks - these will be used for window sills and trim work

Cutie Patootie, and Jewel E. Cat

Yesterday, I happened to be home because I felt like I was swallowing razor blades and I had a back injury (punk kids!), so I got to watch the backhoe dig up the giant stump and start digging out the basement. The stump took all morning, and a couple of times I actually gasped out loud because I thoutght the backhoe man was going to throw himself out of that thing. The whole tractor lifted off the ground, except for the shovel that was stuck in the stump.  Here it is. It really does look like five trees all stuck together.

Sweet Ella (modeling new shoes) with the stump for perspective of the size.

 

The beginning of the new basement.



Side view of the new basement.

They didn't finish digging because of the rain, and because they accidentally found the drain pipe for our washing machine, so right now there is a backhoe parked in our yard, a mountain of red dirt, and a large hole. Georgia already dropped a tennis ball in it, but I forbade her from retrieving it. My carpet is pitiful enough with out red mud being tracked all over it.

That's the progress from the first week.

Closure: Reflections on Jake's Birth

In almost exactly a year’s time, I can finally say that I’ve made peace – with my births, with my body. Not the scar, it’s just a scar, but with the idea that my body turns against me while I’m pregnant, leading to the scar. The scar itself has never really bothered me so much as the message it sends to my children. But do you know what I’ve realized? It’s not a bad message. Sometimes c-sections are necessary. Sometimes, that’s how a baby is supposed to be born. I still want her (them) to understand normal birth, but it’s okay that I had two c-sections. I am not weak or less because I made those decisions, and given all that I’ve learned in the last three years, I’m pretty sure I would make the same decisions again.

Before and immediately after my nephew, Jake, was born, several people inquired into my mental state regarding being present for his very natural birth. I can honestly say that I made peace with my own deliveries before Rebecca went into labor. I knew that I had to. It wouldn’t be fair or helpful to her if I brought that baggage to his birth, and rather than check it at the door, I opted to just unpack it and a put it away. I have two beautiful children; there’s no reason to carry that luggage around with me any longer. Some of it was unpacked here, in the open, but most of it was through reading and watching other births, from many perspectives, including midwives and OBs. I’ve learned more about Gestational Diabetes, more about breech births, more about how others made the same decisions and why.

I did have a brief, wistful moment of heartache as I watched Jake’s head emerge from his mother’s body, but it was gone as quickly as it came. One bit of my c-section experience was useful to Rebecca. I knew that locally injected lidocaine was available to numb the site of her IV (she had a Hep lock), and after a couple of failed attempts to start the line between contractions, the lidocaine made her a lot more comfortable when they tried again on the other arm.

I also had to answer a few of her questions with, “I don’t know; I had a morphine pump” when she asked things like if the cramping would hurt when Jake latched on to nurse the first time. It did. A lot. But, I was able to reassure her that her reaction to the uterine “massage” they do after the birth to check the bleeding was completely appropriate. That hurt like the devil, even with the morphine pump. So, no, she wasn’t overreacting.

Helping them learn to nurse in the days and weeks after he was born humbled me to my core. It was a lot harder than I expected it to be. Trying to help someone physically position themselves and the baby is a lot harder than doing it yourself – like trying to tie a tie on someone else’s neck. I did my best, but I felt like a bumbling idiot. I tried hard not to, but I’m sure I may have driven them nuts with all of my information. It was just another situation where I struggled for balance between being a know it all and providing helpful support. I have cried and worried with her as they’ve found their way, mostly on their own. I also realize that that’s as it should be since it’s her body and her baby and her accomplishment. I’m happy to help her find answers when she needs them and to reassure her when she’s experiencing “normal.” I understand, now, how/why new mothers often give up breastfeeding so early; that for some women, it’s not only not easy, but it’s really hard work. It has not been an easy road for Rebecca and Jake, and I hope that she will share her experience one day for the sake of helping others and giving hope where, as I learned, it can be so desperately needed.

Breastfeeding veterans, I encourage you – regardless of whether your nursing relationship was easy from the first latch or you shed blood, sweat, and tears for every swallow of milk your baby got – to be gentle with new mothers. They not only need support and good information, they need to know they are doing the best they can and that they are doing it well.

Supper at Our House

This is what supper time looks like at our house right now. If you've never had the pleasure of dining with a toddler who is learning to self-feed, enjoy! And, if you will have a toddler learning to feed himself in the near future, get a dog. I'm so serious; just ask the server at Olive Garden who wishes Georgia was a service dog, and thus able to patronize restaurants. Just feed him, you say? So he doesn't make a mess, you say? Sure thing, and then everyone is subjected to his screeching wails of offense at being fed. And then he fasts, because, well, if he can't do it, then no one can (enter grouchy, hungry baby).

Luke, belly full and ready for bed.

Me and my wonky eye, concealing a mouth full of food for a picture.

Ella with her dessert.

Dave, the only one without a full mouth.

The aftermath.

Thankfully, Luke only took a power nap so I didn't have to decide between putting him to bed covered in squash casserole or waking him while cleaning him up.

Kiddlet Tidbits

I’ve been collecting random kid quotes and happenings for a few weeks, but none of them were enough for an entire blog post, so I’ve decided to put them all together in one.


- One night, while Ella was dramatically wailing about getting out of the shower before she was ready, Luke came into the bathroom and laid his head on her leg and patted her to make her feel better. She, of course, didn’t “wike him to touch” her, but I told her to shut it because he was being sweet because she was crying. It does my heart good to see him showing concern and compassion. I know that by virtue of being female, Ella is biologically wired for those behaviors, but I didn’t know what to expect from Luke. My worry about that has been alleviated. He has the sweetest spirit. He loves on the baby dolls, the stuffed animals, Ella, and, have mercy, when Baby Jake cries, he just about can’t handle it. He has even cried with him, when he couldn’t reach to pat him or rock him in his carseat. (He does pat and rock a little too vigorously, but we are working on making his “soft touch” softer. The cats and dogs will thank us. And so will Jake.)

- In the middle of the night a few weeks ago, Luke saw Ella’s water cup beside her bed and he went nutty asking for “Ju-ju” (juice). I took him to the kitchen, poured a cup of juice and took him to my bed. He sat up, drank half of it, and then fell face first into the pillow with a belch. When I laughed, he kicked his feet in response and passed out without nursing. That was the first time he has accepted a cup in the middle of the night.

- Someone taught Ella to say “Roll Tide!” Now, she yells, “Roll Tide!” and throws a crimson colored football at us (which she picked out at Target because it’s Roll Tide-colored). She has a good arm, and sometimes she actually catches it when you throw it back to her. Luke likes to take a handoff and run with the ball so that she’ll chase him.

- September 13, 2011 is a day to be preserved in history because both of my children slept through the night. This was Luke’s first time ever, at 5 days shy of 13 months old. I still woke up at 3 am when Ella was talking in her sleep, but I didn’t have to get up. Luke woke up at 5:20 am, calling out “Mama? Mama?” (I was already awake). He nursed and went back to sleep for an hour. Except for the headache from the stiff neck because I barely moved all night long, it was a glorious night. I’ve probably jinxed myself for a year now, but I needed to share this with other sleep deprived mothers who need some hope.

- Over the weekend Ella asked me these questions: “Mama, when will I have a baby?” and “Will it be a girl?” and “Will you come to my baby shower?” I did tell her that she won’t have a baby until she’s grown, and only God knows if it will be a girl, but I will definitely be at the baby shower. Now she’s planning it.

- My favorite recent quote happened yesterday while we were jumping in the bounce house at a Jump Zone birthday party. She bounced over to me and said, “I love this!” She’s come a long way from last year’s disastrous Pumpkin Patch experience.

- After our latest discussion (yesterday) about which clothes are appropriate for church and which are not, she told me, “I’m going to be a gymnastics teacher when I grow up.” That’s right, so she can wear shorts and tank tops all the time.

- Finally, here’s a shot of Luke that looks remarkably similar to one of my baby pictures. This is just one of his latest feats. He also climbs into the middle of Ella’s little table and stands on it, and he stands on the ottoman and jumps, then scurries down and runs away before I can catch him to get him down.

Luke, helping with the laundry.

Operation Bigger House: The Tree Is Gone

We are distraught about it. Crazy, I know, considering this is a step in the direction of more space that we desperately need. We are having a hard time shaking the thought of, "Who are we to kill something that God created hundreds of years ago?" But, it's done and there's no undoing it now.

Giant stump


This is what's left of it. The stump is big enough that we could host a photo shoot of a family of five sitting on it.


Ella, standing on the stump.



For perspective, here's my preschooler standing on it. Bonus, you get to see how adorable she is in her leotard. We went straight to the backyard after gymnastics so I could take some pictures before it got completely dark.



Site of the addition, sans tree.



This is a  bad picture because I was struggling with my flash and the lighting, but you can see the stump where the tree used to be and the now wide-open space that will house our addition.


Site of the addition, from the tree stump.



This is a better picture, looking directly at the back of the house where the addtion will be built. I'm standing behind the tree stump.

We are supposed to meet with the contractor tonight to find out what happens next. He has told us that once the tree was removed, he'd bring in supplies and our project should take about 90 days once they break ground. I'm hoping he gets started quickly and that it will be finished by Christmas. I just have a feeling we'll need closure on this for the new year.

As for my spirited daughter and her resistance to change, so far she's doing okay. We had some almost-tears last night when we were talking about our new bedroom and she asked me, "Mommy, will I be able to come to your new bedroom?" I don't think she understands yet that it will be connected from the inside of the house,  and all she'll have to do is walk down the hall.

Operation Bigger House: Tree Removal Day 1

These are the pictures from the first day of the tree removal. Basically, they took the top out of half of the tree yesterday - the half that was hanging over the house. 

75% of the tree is still standing


Photography is not my calling, but with this picture I was trying to give an idea of how tall the tree is. I was standing pretty close to the base of it - well, as close as I could and still get the top in the picture. See where half has already been cut?

This next picture shows both the relation of the tree to the house and the site of our addition. The piece of the tree that was already cut actually hung over the roof of the house, filling most of the space you see from the chimney back toward the fence. It was huge.

You can kind of see where the base of the tree started as one and then grew apart as two, but it's mostly hidden behind the yellow chipping machine in this picture. I don't think Dave and I together could wrap our arms around the trunk at the bottom.

The addition will extend into the backyard, toward the tree, from the back of the house where you see the two windows at the end. Ironically, we will be building in the only area of our backyard that currently grows grass. Hopefully, with the massive tree gone, grass will start growing in other places, too.


Site of the addition

 I love our shady backyard, but it really could be a little less shady. That tree you see on the right side of the picture, right next to the swing set? It might be even bigger than the one we are currently having cut down. Lots of shade there = very little grass = plenty of dirt/mud. And leaves. We didn't even know we had grass back there the first year we lived here until Dave started raking that fall and we realized there must have been years worth of leaves on the ground, smothering the grass.

Just for fun, I included a picture of Georgia. It's been a long time since I posted a dog picture here, and she accompanied me on my trek through the backyard to take these pictures. Don't tell her, but it was really a plot to get her out of the house so Dave could play football with the kids without her big brown self right in the middle of it, knocking them down. She was happy to help.


Sweet Georgia Brown






The back of the house, from the fence.

I took this last picture for posterity. The view of the back of our house from the fence is what sealed the deal for me. I just fell in love with it then, and I know I took a picture of it a long time ago but I couldn't find it. Before we change it, I wanted to capture what it looks like today. It's a bit different now because there used to be a ramshackle little greenhouse building on the far right (where you can see the garbage cans). Dave tore it down with plans to rebuild it again one day, but we haven't gotten there yet. With two small children, adding another bedroom quickly became our top priority.

Now that we are officially started on this project, I am so excited about all the plans we have for our house. I just keep telling myself, "Patience, Grasshopper."

We Did Not Name Our Daughter Katie

While Katie was on the short list of names while I was pregnant, we went with Ella Grace. I feel the need to state this for the record because she has corrected me so many times that even I am beginning to think her name is Katie Grace.


She told me that she wants to change her name to Katie Grace. In fact, at times, she just won’t answer to Ella at all.

Why? The best I can tell, there are two reasons.

1. Her favorite gymnastics coach is named Katie.
2. Her college-age cousin that she adores is named Katie.

I guess we’ll play along with this game for a while, but despite her most logical arguments, I will not concede to legally changing her name. I suppose, if she keeps this up for another 16 years, that I can’t stop her from changing it herself one day, but I’m hoping she decides to like the name we gave her.

In other news, Operation Bigger House is officially underway. The giant, centuries-old, oak tree in our backy-ard (that’s how Katie Ella Grace pronounces it) is coming down as I type. It will take a couple of days to get the whole thing down. That’s how big it is. We are sort of sad about it. Dave even had to go out there and tell it goodbye this morning. I guess we have a love-hate relationship with that thing. On the one hand, it’s massive, very close to the kids’ bedroom, and frequently drops limbs on the house and fence (though none big enough to cause significant damage yet). It’s also smack in the middle of our future master suite. On the other hand, it’s huge. It’s obviously been there for a very long time and it just feels wrong on some level to remove it for our own convenience. BUT, I just keep reminding myself of my unreasonable fear that it will fall on my sleeping children in the middle of a storm one night, and I don’t feel so sad about it. Plus, we are building a much needed addition in that space. Much needed. Did I mention that we need another bedroom in our house?

I plan to document this operation in pictures, so look for some in the near future. I guess I’ll start with the tree removal, but I didn’t take one this morning because the guys were already in it, cutting it, and I’m careful about posting pictures of people who might not appreciate having their picture on the internet.

Who Let The Dogs Out?

Every night after bath, my house turns into the set of a music video with Dave as the featured artist singing Who Let The Dogs Out?

To say that the kids (and the dog) love it is a gross understatement.

We have a large, stuffed dog – an artifact from Dave’s childhood – that is big enough for Luke to sit on, and Dave makes it sing, bark and generally create chaos. It usually sits on the shelf above the toy box, and it wears an ugly, blue baseball cap that Dave won for Ella out of the machine at Huddle House.

When Luke gets out of the tub (he’s almost always the first one out because he doesn’t like the “kids sit in the tub” rule), I wrestle him into a diaper and then he goes straight to the toy box. He stands there, looking at that dog, dancing his white-boy dance (stiff upper body, bouncing at the knees, arms by his side, you know what I’m talkin’ ‘bout), and singing, “Who-who!” I get the dog down, and put the hat on Luke’s head. He likes to wear it sideways (see white-boy reference above).

Dave bursts into the room singing, “Who let them dogs out?” with Georgia at his heels, and it’s a full-blown party with loud singing, dancing, dog jumping, baby squealing, wrestling, and what have you. Sometimes it sounds fun enough to roust Ella out of her tub-languishing, sometimes she just ignores them, but when she joins in, the chaos gets ratcheted up another notch. Occasionally there’s bed jumping, but that usually means a quick end to the party so it doesn’t happen often.

Where am I while all of this happens? Far away, lest I trample all over the fun with silly notions of quietly winding down before bed.

And then, somehow, it all comes to an end, hopefully without any crying, and we settle in to read books. Half the time Davey-Dave is so worn out from letting the dogs out that he falls asleep in the middle of the book he’s reading. The kids take a little longer, but I’ve come to appreciate this evening ritual as a last blast of energy-burning fun, so I guess we’ll keep it up as long as Luke keeps saying, “Who-who!”