Time flies when you're going nuts

October was a hell of a month. Not bad, per se, but it was definitely a change of pace.

After a month and a half, I'll say that going part time has made the weekdays much harder, but the weekends easier. This whole new dynamic is completely different from anything we've done before. During the week, the mornings are crazier, the work days are longer, and the evenings are given entirely to feeding children, bathing children, and washing a seemingly-endless array of bottles and pump parts. But the whole point of the exercise was to free up our weekends and it’s working. Of the last six weekends, we've had family staying with us for three. We've also had friends over for dinners, and spent a lot more of our Saturdays outside playing with Micah. It's nice to be able to spend time with people we love, instead of worrying about chores.

To add to the insanity, on October 28th, Todd left his job in private industry to return to the Corps of Engineers. He'd been unhappy there for a while, mostly because he was directly responsible for keeping his people employed in an economic climate that was steadily going to shit. That's a whole different level of stress, and one that just isn't a factor at the Corps. The move means a not-insignificant pay cut, but in return he gets job security, peace of mind, and a LOT less stress. It's hard to put a price tag on that.

So. We're ticking along and slowly settling in from all the recent changes. October was a blur, but November's been better so far, and we're in a good place.

Movin' on up

Tomorrow, Micah officially begins his transition into Preschool. By Wednesday, he'll be in an honest-to-god preschool class with up to 19 other students ranging in age from 2.5 to 4.5 (!!!!) years old. They have a guinea pig named Jello, an actual Spanish teacher, and their own sign-in sheets they're supposed to fill out all by themselves. He'll get to play on the big playground, the one with the giant slides and basketball hoops. He'll be learning letters and numbers; this week they're teaching them about money.

My brain is having trouble processing this move. I mean, PRESCHOOL? Really? Already? But...but...

Truth is, I know he's ready. He's the oldest kid in the Early Preschool class. He's getting bored with their activities (and being disruptive because of it). He knows all his colors, in English and Spanish. He can recite to 10, and he's getting better at counting. He can verbalize his feelings, wants, and needs. He's ready for bigger, more complex toys than they have in his current room. He wants to play with the big kids; he wants to do what they're doing. He's going to have a blast. He's going to love preschool.

But still. MAH BAYBEE.

Preschool? I'm not old enough for Preschool!"

Wonder Fetus IV: The Pinkification

Profile

It's a GIRL.

Two feet and a hand

Even better, she appears to be put together perfectly.

Her due date is June 30, 2011.

Uh, see what happened, uh, was....

Yesterday, we took the side off Micah's crib. Tonight he snuck out of bed. When I went up to stop him, here's what contraband I found in his crib: 7 books, 3 sippy cups, 1 shoe, and his birthday card from Papa and Melissa.

And one little boy with a sheepish grin.

Of course, I laughed. Oops.

Adventures in vocabulary

Last night we were driving to my sister's house when a fire truck passed us, lights and siren going.

Me: "Micah, look, it's a fire truck!"

Micah: "Goin' ta pump da water!"

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Monday we were driving by a construction site, and Micah spotted his favorite piece of equipment.

Micah: "Ekakator! EKAKATOR. Pickin' up da dirt. Pourin' it out inna dum tuck! Beep beep beep."

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The other morning there were five concrete trucks lined up in our side of the neighborhood for an early-morning pour. I held Micah up in his window to see them before breakfast, and by the time we got outside to get in the car, he was beside himself.

Micah: "Oh. My. God. CONKEET TUCKS."

Todd: "Micah, say oh my GOODNESS."

Micah: "Oh my GUDNEZ. CONKEET TUCKS. Oh my gudNEZ. Oh my GUDnez, CONkeet tucks. FIVE conkeet tucks, oh my...."

[FIVE MINUTES LATER]

Micah: "....FIVE CONKEET TUCKS! OH MY GUDNEZ!!!"

Todd: "DUDE. All right, stop. Look, look over here. It's a school bus."

Micah: "COO BUSSSSSS! Coo busssss. Oh my GUDNEZ, Mommy."

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The other day, we were sitting at a stoplight when a loud car pulled up behind us in the next lane.

Micah: "Old tuck, Daddy!"

Todd: "That's not an old truck, buddy. That's a toolbag with a trashcan for a muffler."

The light turns green, and we pull away from the car.

Micah: "Bye bye, toolbag!"

Timeline of woe

July 2 - We move in.

July 30 - AT&T finally installs all their wire, and we have internet. Glorious internet!

August 2 - Some douchebag contractor accidentally cuts the newly-installed lines. No more internets for us.

August 6 - AT&T says not to worry, they've fixed it all! But it turns out they completely swapped our connection with someone else's. We start getting calls for some Random Dude, and we still don't have DSL service because Random Dude wasn't subscribed. I resist the urge to tell callers Random Dude was arrested for streaking a daycare playground.

August 9 - AT&T finally gets the connections sorted out. Yay internet!

August 10 - But...wait...it's down. Why is it down? What happened? It was working at 1:30 PM, WHERE DID MAH INTERNETS GO? NOOOOOOOOOOOO!

August 11 - After keeping Todd on the phone for over an hour, AT&T has no idea why our connection has gone tits up again. But not to worry, they're going to get someone out to check the network by 6 PM...ON FRIDAY.

So, to sum it up, in the 40 days we've lived in the new house, we've had an internet connection for 3.5 days. And two of those days, we were out of town. When you put it like that, what's two more days? Right?

New House

As requested, here are some pictures of the new house. I took these the day we closed, as we were conducting our final walk-through. The house wasn't completely finished (it still isn't), but you can get the general idea.

More here.

Utility companies (and the USPS) are the new enemy

Well, we finally moved in last Friday. The new house is beautiful, Micah loves his new playroom, and we're slowly unpacking all the junk we'd forgotten we had. Life, overall, is pretty good.

Now, for the bitching.

1) Up until the very day we closed on the house, the local water authority refused to allow us water service, because the sewer pump station wasn't finished. Except that it WAS finished, and everything was on and working. They were holding out on the homeowners because our builder needed to put in some dirt along the pump station driveway. And that dirt had to be personally inspected by the head of the local water service. Who was on vacation.

Those water authority guys almost cost us an awful lot of money. They DID cost us an awful lot of stress and wasted time. Remind me to send them a nice card at Christmas. One filled with the best anthrax money can buy.

2) A couple weeks before we were supposed to move, the builder mentioned all offhand-like that our section of the neighborhood didn't have gas yet. As in, it hadn't even been run to the area. At the time, he wasn't even sure when it would actually be run. And we were all, "Uh, dude, we have GAS COOKTOP."

"But it's okay," he said. "We'll install an electric cooktop in the interim. That way we can get the Certificate of Occupancy, and you'll have a cooktop." We agreed. We moved. Then we found out that the wiring for an electric cooktop is totally different from that of a gas cooktop, and consequently, ain't nothin workin. Fast forward, and FINALLY, 5 days after we moved in, the gas is connected and our cooktop is working.

Gosh, I'm glad someone thought to call the gas company BEFORE it became a huge inconvenience for...oh, wait.

3) We won't have phone or internet until at least July 30th because there are no wires in our section of the neighborhood. Even though we called AT&T quite some time ago and asked about that very issue.

4) And finally, the best of all. Today Todd went over to the post office to forward our mail. He'd tried previously to use the online service, but that didn't work. So he went to set it up with the postal worker, and she couldn’t find the address anywhere. This led her to argue with Todd about whether or not we actually live in our town (the answer is a resounding "yes, and also, are you simple?"). Then, once convinced that we do in fact live there, she told him that they'd have to measure the new distance on the route before anything could be approved. The entire extra half-mile deeper into the neighborhood would have to be verified PERSONALLY by the postmaster, who would then decide "if we want to service that mailbox." And, of course, the postmaster is on vacation. FOR THREE WEEKS.

So, no mail for at least three weeks. Oh, but we can go pick it up on Saturdays between 8 and 10! Because that's not an inconvenience, is it? Doesn't everyone want to drive all the way to the post office to pick up their mail? I mean, what kind of lazy person really needs postal service to their house anyway? You know, I bet the USPS could save a lot of money just by eliminating mail delivery. Yay, we just solved the USPS budget crisis!

...Guess what those guys are getting from me for Christmas?

'Tis the season

This weekend was EXHAUSTING.

Saturday morning, we had a clean-up day at work to spruce up our office for some bigwigs coming into town on Wednesday. Saturday afternoon, I went to Jessica's Christmas party where we almost burned down her apartment with an exploding candle and ate a lot of cookies. Sunday afternoon Todd and I hosted our own Christmas party (complete with two 4-year-olds, one 8-year-old, one 15-month-old, one 9-month-old, one 6-month old, and a partridge in a pear tree) and therefore spent most of the morning prepping and the rest of the evening in recovery. Take all that and add in one feral, vicious toddler who refused to nap the entire weekend and HOO BOY, I'm glad it's Monday.

Not so long ago I mentioned that our house was officially on the market. After only 19 days, we got an offer. A really GOOD offer. Now our house is under contract, with closing scheduled for *deep breath* December 30th. It goes without saying that we'd expected it to take months to sell our house, not weeks.

We made a deal to rent the house back from the new owner until January 11th, partly to give us the holidays, and partly to give us time to find somewhere to live for the next four to six months while our new house is being built. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a rental house with a fence that allows pets and doesn't require a minimum 12-month lease? Right now, we have a deal to rent a house in the neighborhood we're building in, and since it's owned by the developer, we don't have to worry about breaking a lease to move when the new one is completed. The only downside is, he won't spring to finish the fence, so we can't keep Niki with us. The current plan is for her to stay with friends at night, and come to work with me during the day.

In the meantime, we're going to enjoy our last few weeks in the house. Last year we kind of missed Christmas, so this year we're making an effort to celebrate. We actually had friends over for the first time in a couple years, and we'll be hosting Christmas dinner at our house with my sister's family and my parents in attendance. I'm hoping to finish my Christmas shopping BEFORE Christmas Eve. I'm also still planning on mailing out Christmas cards, once the pictures come in later this week. I should have done photocards, but I figured why not make it harder?

On top of all that, I'm putting together my application to (finally) take the PE exam in April. Once that's submitted in January, it's time to start studying. I haven't used most of my general engineering knowledge in over six years, so I've got my work cut out for me.

But I'll just go ahead and say now that no matter what else piles on, I have three days at the end of December when our office is closed but the daycare is open, and I intend to spend at least one of those days doing absolutely NOTHING. And it will be awesome.

Betrayed by the calendar

Sunday was our open house marking the official switch to on-the-market status. We spent the last week slaving over the few remaining home improvement projects, but all the hard work paid off - our realtor was blown away when she walked in on Sunday. Sadly, thanks to the rain, only one person actually stopped by to check it out, but she loved it so much, she came back later with her husband. He was concerned the bedrooms might be too small for their 14 and 17 year old sons (which, okay, that's kind of why we're moving), but she wanted to come back and look at it again later this week. If it makes that good an impression on even half the people who come by, we'll be in good shape!

But yeah, our house is officially ON SALE. I'm excited that we're moving forward, but also kind of depressed because man, I love that house. If it was only just a little bigger, it would be perfect.

Other than that, it's like...November or something? And I guess Thanksgiving is this week? Hey, looks like it's time for my annual "Christmas is in five weeks OMGWTFBBQ" freak-out. Because Christmas shopping? Done? HAHAHAHAHAOHNOES.

In between

Our house goes on the market on November 20th. We have a pre-con meeting for the new house tomorrow. Suddenly, this whole building/selling/moving thing is seeming just a bit more real. And scary.

(Hold me.)

The house is almost ready. We're down to nothing but painting, so Todd's mother is coming into town tomorrow to wrangle the boy while we work. This past weekend, Todd finished the new floor in our bathroom and yesterday, he installed all the trim and even put the hardware on the vanity we've had for over a year. I almost don't want to move now. I finally LIKE nearly everything in the house - I want to enjoy it, dammit!

The hope is that the house sells quickly, but not so quickly we find ourselves on the street before the new house is finished. Or it sells right away, and the buyer can lease it back to us for a while. Whatever. I hate moving, and I only want to suffer once. We'll see how that works out.

Other than getting ready to sell our house, there's the whole lawsuit thing that's going on. It's slowly ramping up, and...y'all, I don't know what to say. It's pretty uncool to know you did a good job, to have the evidence SHOW you've done a good job, but to have someone say you didn't because they want a new BMW or a trip to Disneyworld. [REST OF INCREASINGLY-BITTER PARAGRAPH REDACTED UPON FURTHER CONSIDERATION]

In other happier news, Micah took his first three steps at daycare yesterday, one day shy of 14 months. Here we go!

All kinds of things

I spent the last week at a facility overseeing the RCRA closure of some old wastewater tanks. It being August in Northern Alabama, it was FLESH-MELTING HOT, so we were starting at 6 AM. The job we thought would only take two days ended up taking four and a half, but it's finally done. And I'm pooped.

Last Wednesday, Micah officially transitioned up the toddler level at his daycare. This means taking a nap on a cot instead of in his crib, a set schedule that includes time on the playground and in the gym, and (Micah's favorite part) TWO snack times per day. They play with playdough, finger paint, sing songs, and learn sign language. He's required to have shoes for wearing outside and sippy cups instead of bottles. He's exhausted every day when he gets home, is eating everything in sight, and is having a BLAST.

I was pretty apprehensive about him moving up, but I think it's been awesome for him. It's a little difficult for me - no more going over to nurse at lunch, because that's right smack in the middle of nap time - but being so busy all week helped distract me. The few times I've stopped by, he's been so involved in playing, he didn't even notice I was there until I sat down in front of him. He's rapidly leaving the baby phase behind, but I'm happy to see him having so much fun.

Last Thursday, after several weeks of weighing alternatives, looking at houses, and generally freaking out a bit (at least on my part), we signed a contract to have a house built. You can see the proposed floorplan here. Assuming everything goes as planned, we'll be moving in March. And that means we'll need to put this house on the market sooner rather than later. Now if you need me, I'll be hyperventilating into this paper bag.

Update: Whoops, wrong floorplan link. It's fixed now.