Sophie says...

Walking home from daycare yesterday, I have Sophie on my shoulders (going "hee haw"). I ask her what she did today; anything fun?

Sophie: "I have no idea."

Reaper

I was skeptical about this show. But man, oh man, was it funny! There were many times when I laughed out loud despite myself. I love "Sock" - the sidekick. So funny. Reminds me of many people I know. I loved how he kept chucking things at Sam to test his telekinesis. I highly recommend. I sincerely hope the show continues like last night. Clever writing, good chemistry among that cast.

23 Months!

Better a little late than never.

Wow, our lives are a bit of a whirlwind right now. We were away this weekend for our nephew's 9th birthday and it completely slipped my mind that we hit the 23 month mark with the Snoph. A fun weekend, despite the fact that Sophie has a cold and was running a mild fever. She had a great time playing with her cousins and all of their fascinating toys. They heard she was into Jessie from Toy Story 2 and they have her their old Jessie, Woody, Buzz Lightyear and Zurg dolls. She just about flipped her lid.

She was having trouble sleeping in their (finished) basement Saturday night because that is where all the toys live and there was so much to see and touch and discover that we could not get her to just lay down and close her eyes. Finally, I said she could bring her 3 favorite toys to bed with her. She ran over to the little cash register, grabbed a paper $10 bill (priorities, people), then the Jessie and Woody dolls.

She fell asleep almost instantly, clutching the loot.

Also, I'm going to say the "w" word - she's officially weaned herself. I'm calling it. Game over. I'm not hurting (physically, anyway) as much as I thought I'd be, just some tenderness. It's a sad end, but it was about time for both of us. I never thought I'd nurse past a year, but then decided to leave things up to her.

I have so many pictures to upload and so many to take. I feel a little bit like I'm sinking in the amount of things that need to be done around the house that I never find myself upstairs in front of the computer with time to upload.

But, back to Sophie. Let's see. Where to begin? She's singing and dancing a ton. Her daycare lady says that Sophie is the only one who knows all the words to the songs and will sit there and sing them to everyone. "Farmer in the Dell", "Twinkle, Twinkle", "ABC...", "It's Raining, It's Pouring", "Rain, Rain, Go Away", "Itsy Bitsy Spider", etc., etc.

We've taught her our names - I'm "Ekwa" and Aaron's "Ay-un" at the moment. For safety reasons, kids should always know your full names so if they ever get lost, they don't know you as just Mommy and Daddy and Grandma, etc.

We moved all of her normal snacks to a cabinet she can easily access. She's loving the independence of telling us she's hungry and going to the cabinet to get it herself. "I be right back. One minute." With full hand gestures that you just have to see to believe. Obviously imitating me.

Aaron tends to be the one helping Sophie during bathtime and she really, really hates the process of washing her hair. Water pouring in her face (no matter how carefully it is poured), etc. I had a brainstorm last night and brought her IKEA mirror into the bathroom. We talked about making a bubble hat and we all played with making her hair into different shapes. She loved it. She even helped pour the water over her head to rinse out the shampoo. We decided we need more mirrors around the house. She loves singing to herself and talking to herself and it's a great way to learn language.

We might* be inheriting a little electric piano and microphone from my sister and, if so, we're going to put it in her room with a big mirror in front of it.

*It might have been a spur-of-the-moment offering by her kids and she's going to check with them to make sure they actually meant it.

She seems to like the new house. Oh, excuse me, "Sophie's New House!" In fact, it seems to suit all of us really well. It will be nice once everything is organized. We're having Sophie's little birthday gathering here next month, so it will be to be the inspiration we need to finalize some things.

It starts to become like a snake eating its tail: we need to clean up the rest of the clutter and hang the photos, but the plaster walls have some holes in them that need fixing before we hang the photos and then, if we patch the holes, we need to paint. And then that means we really should re-paint the trim because there were some attention-to-detail issues with the previous owners. But we really need to get the clutter picked up except a lot of it needs to go on the surfaces that are now stacked with photos. Ugh. I don't want to hang the photos now because once they're up, I know I'll be less inspired to paint and patch.

Oy, back to Sophie again. Do you see how my mind is all over the place at the moment?

When I ask Sophie what kind of birthday she wants, she says: "Pink". I think maybe she means the cake, but just to be sure, we're decorating with some pink. Balloons? She wants blue and yellow and green. I think anything is going to make her happy. But she's very, very excited at the concept of birthdays and there have been a lot of birthdays lately. She cannot wait until it is HERS.

She has memorized quite a few books and, if I stop reading and wait, she'll start reciting the words. She's not actually reading yet, but she has a pretty extensive memory. Even reading a book one time, she'll be able to tell you how most of the sentences end. Easier books, like "Old Hat, New Hat", she pretty much knows all the way through. Her attention span is getting longer and longer and will actually sit through long books like "The Lorax" without getting antsy. She loves, loves, loves books. Even her daycare lady said that all Sophie does is ask to read books all day long. I'm excited by this because I love to read, too.

The biggest word this month: "dehumidifier". Said very clearly and in the right context.

I've been reading a bit about Montessori and activities little kids can play and do and we're going to start slowing integrating some of them. Like bringing Sophie's little table into the kitchen so she can help cook and giving her jobs like sweeping and cleaning and straightening up. She loves to help and if it just becomes part of the routine, hopefully it will continue. I'm going to assign (for all of us) a room(s) a day that need to be straightened before the day is done. Such as: Monday - Kitchen. And try to get us all in the habit of working on them. One room a day does not seem that daunting. And I need help with this as much as Sophie does. I tend to let things slide a bit until someone is coming over or things get overwhelming. So, trying to turn that around and teach Sophie (and myself and Aaron) better habits.

I'm not sure how we can top last year's rhinoceros costume. Aaron has an idea, but not sure if it will be completed in time. Maybe she'll be a pirate? We'll see.

In closing, Sophie is a very affectionate, very active little girl. Lots of hugs and squeezes and "I love you SO MUCH"-es. She amazes us by how quickly she's learning things. I wouldn't trade this time for the world.

Now that's a workout

Treadmill Madness (via K)

Ode to a Small Town

Although I do like bigger cities, I'm loving living in a small town now that we have a house. And I love working for a manufacturing company because most people who work here are very handy. And they all know someone who has what I need.

Dilemma: we have trees too close to our house that are causing moss and lichen on the roof. Plus, they are ugly. Also? the hedges around the house are old and "leggy" and ugly. I started calling landscapers and tree guys but they wanted tons of money to do the work. A coworker overheard my dilemma, said: "I can come by tomorrow with a chainsaw."

Solution: P came by with a chainsaw and took care of the trees and a few dead limbs on the big maple in the backyard. For nothing: it's a housewarming gift to me. He's coming by next week to cut down the hedges. We're going to dig them out afterwards and start fresh with new plants. He's also going to help us get our dresser through the second floor window.

Dilemma: I would really like to put mulch around the (possibly) dogwood hedges that grow along the perimeter of our lawn. They've been abused by the previous owners and really need to look better, in general.

Solution: a local landscaping company will come by with a woodchipper and chip all the branches and hedges P just chopped down. Presto! Mulch!

Dilemma: we need a lawnmower. I was looking around on Sears.com and other sites and they were all about $200 or more. Ugh. Not what I want to pay right now especially since we need some pretty extensive plumbing work done. I mentioned it to a coworker and he said: go ask G; he fixes lawnmowers and always has one or two he's trying to sell.

Solution: I'm buying a Craftsman mower for $50 and I've got a guy who can fix it if it breaks.

(On a side note, I don't really want a gas mower but Aaron is putting his foot down. Apparently he thinks he's going to be doing all the mowing and he doesn't want to deal with an electric or reel mower. I'm going to let him have this one. This time.)

Dilemma: we need to fix the crazy electrical work the seller (supposedly a professional electrician...) did to the house. Things like moving outlets, fixing the GFCI outlets (none of them are actually grounded), moving wiring that is not to code, etc. The quote we received from one of the electricians during our inspection was around $500. Fine, we just need to get the work done. And yet, now that we have the house and are willing to shell out money? No one is calling back. A coworker said - call J, he does work here all the time for us. Plus, you actually know him because he was on that bluefish fishing trip with you**.

Solution: I called J, he followed me home at lunch, looked over everything that needed to be done and said - yep, I can get all that done pretty quickly. Won't be more than $200. Sweet.

Dilemma: we need major plumbing work done in our basement. Which we knew about when we bought the house. The previous owner had his buddy do some plumbing to add a 1/2 bath on the first floor. He did some crazy piping to accomplish it. Needs fixing. We need a new run-off sink for the washing machine. Either that, or we just need the washing machine connected directly to the drain. Also? The cast iron waste line is failing - starting to leak, etc. It runs half the circumference of our basement. Behind paneling, through walls, etc. (about 60 feet of piping). Because the basement used to be used as a hair salon "back in the day", there is a funky hair washing sink and an even stranger toilet. Both need to be removed because they are non-functioning and they are eyesores. Those are not urgent fixes, but we would like to redo the basement at some point. The waste line is urgent. Estimate during the inspection process? Anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000 for everything. So, I started asking around for plumbing recommendations to get a written estimate and to find someone I can trust to do the work. Call the local oil company, they do plumbing and they can look at your boiler at the same time.

Solution: the plumbers from the local oil company came today and starting looking at the extent of the work. On and on about "What the hell is that?" and "Wow, this is a lot of work. It's going to take a whole day." and "I've never seen anything like this." Aaron and I were both paling at the thought of what their estimate was going to be. They finally left, sat in the truck for a while and then came back: $1,000 for parts, $1,000 labor. Ugh, but sweet! AND they will remove the sink and the toilet and basically leave the basement at a great starting point. We thought the waste line alone was going to be twice that!

So, now we just need to get everyone in there to get the work done. It's going to be such a relief to have things fixed.

Now I just need to rope some people in from work to help us take down the walls in the basement.

Instead of feeling lost amongst thousands of people, I feel like I'm getting to know all the people I'm supposed to know.

Plumber? Check. Electrician? Check. Mechanic? Check.

**A couple of years ago, I went with "the guys" from work on their annual fishing trip to catch bluefish. The only woman, I think I held my own pretty well. I caught 19 big bluefish and they are not easy at all.

Sophie

Seeing her name spelled out on the Magnadoodle:

"S - O - P - H - I - JKLMNOP"

Love this

Visual representation of how much carbon dioxide your car expels in one day. I'm sure it's double that size for SUVs.

Also this, for a later date. A very green, environmentally-friendly mattress for much less than you'd expect. A California King for $499? AND it has a layer of memory foam. As soon as we're ready to replace ours, this is what we are getting.

Littlest Pirate

Aaron just called.

He said that Sophie INSISTED on wearing her pirate hat, hook and sword to daycare this morning.

And she kept saying something that he didn't understand. Over and over again, getting more frustrated with him that he kept asking: "What?"

He finally figured out that she was saying: "Shiver me timbers!"

(this photo is actually courtesy of my friend, S. Taken on Sunday. Picture, instead, pink polka dot tights, pink Crocs and a ballet shoe shirt.):

Sophie says...

Aaron just called. He said Sophie was in the living room and he walked around the corner and startled her and she exclaimed: "Oh my gosh!"

Hee hee hee.

The eye? It's still twitching.

Well, we did manage to get some more things unpacked in the kitchen and it feels like things are starting to come together.

Now it's not just the one little bottom eyelid twitch I've been experiencing - it's the whole other side of my face. The other twitch was mostly noticeable to me. This one? The new one? It's catching people off-guard - Aaron: "Whoa - your whole cheek just twitched."

Aaron also did a whole bunch of laundry on Saturday while Sophie and I went shopping for birthday presents and house supplies and some new clothes for me. Because my wardrobe is severely lacking in finesse.

Sophie chose colors for me. Like this one, only in black with white polka-dots. She had a choice between light blue, pink and black with white polka-dots. "Dotty, Mommy." No hesitation. And I like it, actually. I've already received a few compliments today.

We also did a bunch of work on the yard - pulling up the awful, invasive bittersweet from the patch of plants between our house and the neighbor's. There are lilacs and irises and some others in there and the bittersweet was smothering everything. My dad recommended *not* pulling it up because if you leave even a chunk of root, it will regrow. But there was such a huge structure of roots underneath all the good plants, that we wanted to start fresh. Ish. We're going to mulch this patch so we can see what comes up through it. That way, we can just keep pulling the bittersweet as it pokes its invasive, awful head through.

There was one patch of bittersweet roots that spiderwebbed across a huge swatch of lawn. Luckily, it had just rained all day, so the soil was moist. I started pulling the roots and the sod just kept rolling back. I got most of the roots out and then carefully rolled the sod back in place. The good news? There were lots of earthworms under there.

I also cut down some of the maple and oak shoots coming up everywhere and raked as much as possible. If we cut down the yew/arbor vitae hedges around the front of the house, we'll have a ton of branches to chip. We think we're going to hire a woodchipper to come to the house and create a big pile for us to use as mulch. It's actually cheaper at this point to do that vs. bring the whole load of branches and trees to the transfer station. And then we get mulch.

Anyone have a reason NOT to woodchip yew hedges? There's some blue spruce in there, too. Which I know is acidic, but as long as I know that, I can alter the pH accordingly. Now we just need to pull the bittersweet out of the branch pile so that it doesn't become part of the mulch. We have huge, separate, pile of bittersweet already but there is still a lot intertwined with the trees we cut down.

Did I mention we had some trees cut down? It's been awhile. A coworker offered to come by with a chainsaw. He cut down a couple of ugly blue spruce that were too close to the shed, an arbor vitae/white cedar and a couple of dead branches from our big maple tree. That's what is going into the woodchipper. Not my partner, eh, Margie?

And then yesterday, after pulling and raking and piling, we all went in, cleaned up and headed to the pirate party! So much fun! Treasure to be dug up from the sand box, lots of costume apparel for everyone to wear - hats and hooks and swords and mustaches and sashes! I forgot to bring my camera! I'm terrible. Hopefully my friend will send some photos. (Pretty, pretty please?) Such a great group of people - I wrote to my friend that I don't think I've received that many great hugs in a long time. So warm and inviting. Babies were being passed around and everyone had kids and knew how to relate to them. All in all, a fantastic party. Sophie was exhausted from the fun.

In case anyone is still reading at this point (not sure why I've been doing these extremely long posts once a week - I'll need to modify this soon): Sophie has been down to one nursing session a day: first thing in the morning when the alarm goes off. She even wakes up about 15 minutes before the alarm goes off to ask for milk. On the weekends, however, with no alarm - she wakes up later and then just wants to go play. Kind of Pavlovian. This morning? The alarm went off and she slept through it. Snooze. Alarm. Snooze. Alarm. Aaron gets up. Sophie's still sleeping. Long-winded way of telling you that my boobs are going to be killing me by the end of the day. I'm not going to say the "w" word until we know if this was just a fluke.

House Stuff

My younger sister, her husband, their 14-month old son and their two dogs stayed with us this weekend. Luckily, they just recently moved so they understand the living-amongst-boxes state of our house. We had a lot of fun laughing and exploring the house and drinking gin & tonics and good beer and cooking good food. Their son took his first steps at our house! In our living room! So exciting. He was so very, very proud of himself. Huge grins while walking like a mini-Frankenstein. He even walked himself over to Sophie for a big hug.

He's a very tactile guy and you have to keep an eye on him. Pretty much everything he picks up ends up in his mouth. Bark, sticks, rocks, acorns, dirt, shoes, nail files, cat toys, etc. Amusing to observe from a distance but his parents are on constant alert. He also loves to pet hair and touch your clothes and face and hands and anything you put in front of him. All the time with a huge grin on his face. He had a lot of trouble sleeping - no naps and lots of waking up at night. Partly probably because of the new environment and partly also because, dude, he's trying to figure out how to walk.

After they left on Sunday, I made myself a big gin & tonic and got to work on the kitchen. Aaron and I cleared out most of the garage boxes - a lot of them went into the attic - and I emptied countless kitchen and living room boxes. I think I have a plan for the kitchen now. Along with a list of stuff I'd like to buy for the kitchen.

The sellers took most of the drapes and blinds and I've never been good about putting up drapes and curtains. I'm a little stuck. I wish IKEA was closer.

It is so hard to unpack boxes while I'm home with Sophie by myself in the evening. Now that school has started up again for Aaron, I'm mainly the one doing the before-bed duty. And then when that's all done, I'm not inspired to start unboxing again.

In other news, Aaron broke the toilet seat last night. It's a toilet I want to replace at some point so maybe the replacement will happen sooner than later.

Also - big news: Sophie peed in the toilet this morning! She told me she had to pee and we went to the toilet, took off her diaper and she actually peed in the toilet! We don't even have her little potty up there yet so I held her on the big toilet. She was quite proud of herself. And also very nonchalant about the whole thing.

Later, after I went to work, she told Aaron she had to pee again. They went to the potty, took off her diaper, she sat down and "Nothing, Daddy". She got off, he started to put on her diaper and she pooped all over him. Heee heeeee. I'm so glad I got the pee and not the poop.

In other news, our new washing machine and dryer aren't arriving until 9/18. It sounds like we need to find a laundromat in the meantime.

We are going to a pirate-themed party this Saturday for twin 4-year olds. Any recommendations for pirate-themed presents?

A Very Long Recap of the Big Move

If I don't write this down, I'll forget.

We finally closed on our first house. The sellers were still in the driveway with their huge moving truck and all the cars jam-packed with stuff when we came to do our walk-through. It's interesting that you generally never meet the sellers during the process. Some things might have been easier to discuss if you could actually sit down and talk with them. They seemed nice, albeit very tired. Young, with a dog and a 13-month old.

We left after doing the walk-through and headed to our lawyer's office. Tons and tons of things to sign. None of it seemed real. Then off to the Registrar of Deeds (a great old building with tons of character). We thankfully missed the mother-in-law from hell (not mine - the listing agent's) due to a miscommunication. Our realtor had to deal with her. She had to give us a check for $100 because the sellers miscalculated how much oil was left in the house.

Oy, this is boring. I'll try to keep it short.

Aaron and I went back to our old house and tried to finish packing. We also picked up my company's big van because we knew we would not be able to finish packing everything that night.

The next morning, the movers called about an hour earlier than expected that they were on their way. We rushed around, collecting cats and Sophie and toys for all, and got me on the road before the movers got to the house.

And then Sophie and I sat and waited at the new house. In hindsight, if I had thought about how long we waited there (over 3 hours), I might have hired cleaners to go through the new house. As it was, the sellers had a dog and barely swept before they left. I Swiffered and sprayed and wiped as much as I could while still entertaining Sophie but I made just a small dent in getting the dog hair up and out of the house.

We locked the kitties in the sunroom during all of this.

Because the beds and everything weren't going to be in the house and set up in time for Sophie's naptime, I checked in with Aaron at the other house and then took Sophie with me for a drive. She eventually fell asleep and I headed back to the new house, rolled down the windows, and parked in the shade. Aaron was at the new house now and he was more than happy to sit in the car with her while she snoozed.

blah blah blah

Everything moved in, the movers were happy with the donuts and pizza and water provided to them (a suggestion from my sister who had just moved into a new house herself).

Aaron's parents were in town from CA and they helped watch Sophie and then took us all out to an early dinner and bought Sophie a very cool Melissa & Doug tree house/play house.

The next day was back to the old house with the company van for Aaron and I once his parents arrived to watch Sophie. More packing and cleaning and packing and boxing and loading and lifting. The whole time swearing I'm going to pare down my belongings so that the next time we move, it won't take thousands of additional trips after the movers have left. Have a big tag sale, donate, etc. Ugh, the last bit of packing sucks. So tired at that point and we slept maybe 3 hours the night before because Tabitha would not stop meowing and howling. Stupid cat. Yes, scared and anxious, but also completely annoying. We were both ready to strangle her. Aaron eventually went downstairs and locked her in the sunroom with Otto.

Monday was more packing at the new house - we headed over there bright and early with Sophie and packed and sorted and packed and lifted and lugged. Aaron's parents arrived to keep an eye on Sophie.

Probably three or four more trips with the van? Hard to remember at this point.

My parents then came to the new house to check it out and bring food to grill and my dad wandered around the yard watering flowers and pointing out what to keep and what to chop down. (keep: hydrangeas; chop: blue spruce, all the hedges near the front, bittersweet, prune the maple tree)

I'm sure no one has made it through this whole post.

Anyhoo, boxes are everywhere. I'm still trying to figure what do to with all my kitchen stuff. We have a lot to put up in the attic and there are a ton of boxes in the garage. Our main dresser - a very nice piece hand-crafted in cherry - did not make it up the stairs. They tried every angle and it just could not get past the last set of legs. It is now downstairs in the front hallway while we try to figure out what to do. This house also has much smaller closets and no built-in cubby wardrobe and all of our clothes are in laundry baskets around our room.

Oh yeah, and the sellers took their washing machine and dryer. Our new set (a present from a wonderful gift fairy) won't arrive until the 19th. So the pile of dirty clothes is getting bigger and bigger upstairs.

I will feel better once I've organized the kitchen. Which has been difficult because Aaron started school this week and has not been home when I'm home with Sophie after work. Also, we want to put a lot of the dishes, etc., up in the attic, but the door to the attic is in the office and it is blocked by boxes of books.

So I guess we need to take care of the office first. Which I can't do until Aaron's home to help because there is a huge filing cabinet in front of the bookcases that needs to be moved either up to the attic or out to the garage. Probably the garage. Also, we don't want the cats going up into the attic or out into the garage. We also need to keep an eye on Sophie. You can see our dilemma.

My younger sister, her husband, their toddler son and their two dogs are coming tonight for the weekend. Our nephew's 2nd birthday party is this weekend, too. We can't wait to show them around and get their advice on projects.

I also noticed last night, after scrubbing it for at least an hour, that the surface of our bathtub is funky. It looks dirty no matter what you do to it. God, I don't want to replace a tub.

To recap a very long recap: we like the house, we're tired, everything is still in boxes and we haven't had time to dig through everything. Oh, and we need to figure out projects in order of importance.

Linkly, my dear

Mark Carr's Biblioteca Bookrack - I might have to try doing this to a cheap coffee table and see what results.

Zombie Sock Monsters! You have not lived until you have seen these. Made lovingly by my friend, Erin.

My brain hurts

I'm so tired. I just want to sink under the covers of my bed and sleep for days.

More later.