Pictures of Friends

I've done pictures for three friends' families in the last four months. It's been really helpful practice and I think I'm getting better. A nice camera does not guarantee great pictures, so I've been grateful for a chance to improve my photo editing skills especially.

Mess, Mess, Mess

My realtor think that our kitchen looks like this.

It actually looks more like this.... 

...on a good day.

The final clean is going along slowly. I'm focusing mostly on the conspicuous cleaning- ie, putting stuff away, so that this place can be picture-ready by the end of the week. We will be listing on Sunday, then we will not start showing until the following Sunday, so I've got a little while to get the finer details, like inside the cupboards and fridge. With these girls, though, it's sort of 2 steps forward, 1.95 steps back. They seem to follow right behind me messing up as I tidy.

 Natalie went to the dentist and did great. The kid dentist here is so amazing- their office resembles a children's museum, with a giant pirate ship and video game controllers and screens hanging off the walls everywhere, amazing murals in all of the rooms and hallways and well-planned space for maneuvering a stroller. She loved the cool sunglasses that they gave her when turning on the light to look in her mouth and she was proud to show that the Jake and the Neverland Pirates toothbrush that they gave her matched her pullup. She insisted on pulling down her shorts to show the hygenist, who giggled heartily. All the folks working there were so nice and friendly. I wish they took adult patients! Here is what Natalie chose from the prize wall.

 And here she is on time-out, where she is sent several times a day, usually for crimes of roughness against her sister.

But it's hard, because sometimes her sister eggs her on. They will be having fun and I keep telling Natalie to be gentle, but Angela just shrieks and laughs and plays along.... until she's hysterically crying and bleeding from some part of her face. I actually have this new off-white shirt that I bought and every single time I wear it, Angela gets hurt and bleeds from the mouth, getting the blood on my left shoulder. I'm almost afraid to wear the shirt, like it will curse Angela to hurt her mouth.

Anyway, when she's not roughhousing or being super clingy and crying for me to hold her, she's pretty cute. Unfortunately, both of those conditions are rarely met unless she is mischievously getting into something.

Sometimes, after listening to the two of them alternately crying all afternoon long, I just tie them down and shove a Popsicle in their fists. It usually gives me about 3-4 minutes of peace.

 Angela loves screens. She doesn't care that much about shows, but she will easily chillax, sprawled out in front of the tv, when the dvd menu is left on and the screen image starts floating around in a pattern.

Little Lions

This pride is staking out its territory, scaring away nearby food chain competitors

Updates and Ramblings

Well, we're doing it. We're pinning down dates and making firm plans.

I have been going crazy the past few weeks, as Micah has reported that he hasn't been making the progress on his thesis that he originally had planned to allow him to be done with everything and start work on September 21. At the same time, we didn't want to push the date further because 1.) There was no way of being certain how much more it would need to be delayed, since the last steps of his thesis require cooperation from a reading committee, edits, and the scheduling of the dissertation, possibly taking 3 weeks or three months 2.) Micah's NSF fellowship stipend ends this month. His advisor has been generous in offering to pay for his tuition for the new semester and said that they would discuss what he could pay Micah for August, but the usual rate for a graduate researcher is much less than what his NSF stipend was. 3.) It's so emotionally exhausting knowing that we will be moving and not doing anything about it. I have been so anxious, thinking over and over about the process of cleaning and packing before showing our condo, finding a home in Florida, getting a second car. I am so ready to just get down to doing it.

So, Micah spoke with his manager at Harris and got the green light that he can go ahead and start on September 21 and can fly back to Atlanta and get the day off of work for his dissertation, if it is not completed in time. So, exactly two months from today, we will officially, definitely and certainly, barring any massive natural disasters or other such major unforeseen incidents, be in Florida, Micah enjoying his first day on the job.

Yesterday, I filled our living room with boxes and beginning this afternoon, we will start moving them into a storage unit so that our place looks less cluttered for selling. We plan to put our house on the market August 2 and start showing it August 9. So, everything doesn't have to be perfect until the 9th, but I want to clean up as much as possible well in advance so that we can get some good photographs for our listing. It will certainly be a slow process, packing and cleaning with the kids, but somehow I find it way less stressful to have our whole house trashed as I begin sorting and hauling out stuff than worrying about having to do it some future day. It will be especially hard because Micah will be putting in some long hours the next two weeks in order to submit his "rough draft" thesis by August 1, so I will be working hard all day and night without much relief.

In case you're wondering about our kids: they are adorable, perfect, darling little nightmares. I remember  when Natalie was about a year and a half, I felt like there was something wrong with her and I just couldn't pinpoint what it was about her that was so frustrating. Then, a lady in our relief society one day asked me, "So, is your daughter still pretty active?" That was it. Active. That's what Natalie is. And Angela, too, now. They aren't constantly bouncing off the walls or anything, but they can't stand being bored. They seem to need constant attention and entertainment and stimulation, or they are super, duper needy and hang on me and make me insane. I'm still trying to figure out whether I've spoiled them or if i's just their inborn nature, but it is certainly wearying. I haven't had a break (like, 24 hours+) from being a mom in over 2 years now. I really feel like it's time. The 3-day 2-night company paid house hunting trip will be something, but we'll be busy checking stuff out and might not have much time to relax. So, don't judge me if I spend a week over Christmastime on a cruise all alone.

In other news, you remember that leak I complained about last time? It was coming from our upstairs toilet. It was not installed properly and has likely been leaking sightly ever since we bought the place 4 years ago. The plumbing repair was $500 and he told us that the cleanup of the inside of the wall and the kitchen cupbaord affected would probably cost "a few thousand dollars", depending on the degree of mold they discover when opining up the wall. I discovered that our insurance coverage has a $15,000 deductible. So, we're just living with it and hoping that it doesn't hurt the sales price too much. It's super obnoxious because the part of the cabinet that is most visibly affected could be super cheap and easy to replace, but the cabinets are so crappy that they have no info inside any drawers or cupboards with the manufacturer's info so I can't easily order another one unless I find someone with enough specialization to be able to identify it by looking at it. Also, there is a horizontal strip that covers the top seam of all of the cupboards on that side of the kitchen and I'm pretty sure that removing it will damage it at the very least, likely destroy it, and so then we'd be left with another part to try to match. Overall, I'm just not interested in the headache. So, there it is, buyers! Water damage! Go ahead, offer less than the asking price! I'm still not that concerned. I mean, there is no way that we won't make a huge killing on this place. I'm sure that we will sell quickly and easily, we just might not get the full 100% return that I was hoping for!

Lookind at cars, we've narrowed it down to a few. What are your opinions?
We're looking for a little more trunk space (so we can throw the cooler in the trunk, along with the stroller and swimmy gear and head to the beach!). So, originally I was thinking station wagon. The Jetta Sportswagen and Toyota Matrix are my favorites, though between the two, I feel like I trust Toyota a bit more where reliability comes in. Then, liking toyota, I started looking at Rav4's. Did you know that some rav4's can come with 3rd row seating? While I don't need a van, a couple of tiny rumble seats in the back would be perfect for occasionally driving my kids and their friends. Then, we can fold them down and easily have the trunk space I want. But it is an SUV and I don't know how it would handle.  Then, I saw a friend's new Maxda5 and it looks awesome. Though the seats may be a bit small, it's got the fold-down third row and seems lower to the ground. Just not sure about Mazda's reputation (or lack of) for reliability.

Next time I will have photos. My camera battery is dead!

Recent Cuteness and Stress

Natalie uses "puzzle" as a verb to describe the act of putting together a puzzle. For example, "I need help puzzling. Will you puzzle with me?"

Angela says "uh-huh", "uh-uh" and "uh-oh". She only has a vague sense of what they all mean. It's very easy to catch her being naughty because she loudly repeats "uh-uh. uh-uh. uh-uh" as she does something bad.

Angela waves at everyone who says "hi" or "bye", and sometimes when I get her attention to take a picture.

Micah is pretty worn out these days. He passed out on the couch last Saturday afternoon and Natalie kept bringing him toys to get him to play with her, but he wouldn't budge.

He gets to spend plenty of time when he's home just being one of the kids. Pictured here, drinking juice from a sippy cup:

And here, joining the girls for their bedtime bath:

Everyone loved the fireworks on Independence Day. I had chalk and glow sticks from the dollar store to keep us entertained before they began.

We also marched in a parade, but have no pictures. It rained the whole time, which made it slightly miserable. Natalie got pulled in a wagon which we borrowed from a friend but Angela wouldn't stay sitting down. I ended up carrying Angela (who fell asleep for the middle 75% of the parade) while carrying an umbrella. Natalie made up a little nest with a quilt and the removable umbrella from our stroller and stayed tucked up, semi-dry, eating candy that we were were supposed to throw to the parade-viewers. It was a good time. Here she is a few days earlier passed out randomly on the dog bed in the borrowed wagon.

 And this is how I found her watching TV while Angela took a nap the other day. I always say, headstand is the most comfortable position for relaxing.

Angela is a bit of a picky eater and it makes me nuts. Somehow, though, she never refused a cup of warm milk or a bowl of ice cream. Especially chocolate.

After three weeks without diapers, Natalie has made no headway with potty training. Not only did she continue to have accidents, but she started deliberately peeing herself. On Friday, she wet her pants 5 times before 10am and on Saturday she registered her disdain by peeing into the toy box. I don't know what to do with her. We've tried rewards, positive conditioning, punishment, daniel tiger, appealing to her desire to be treated like a big girl, tried panties, pull-ups, diaper covers, stark naked; it seems that she just refuses to be potty trained. I am extremely not okay with this. Nevertheless, I don't know what else to do.

On another gloomy note, we have a plumbing issue. When the shower/tub is used, it leaks water downstairs in our kitchen. I had noticed the water a few times but thought that it was from water being spilled onto the floor of the bathroom and that I just needed to seal up the base boards in the bathroom better. On Saturday, I caulked up the whole bathroom floor and then we still got a big puddle downstairs when the girls took a bath. I investigated and discovered that one of our cabinets has considerable mold and water damage. Lovely. They're cheap particle board, so there will likely be no way to repair the cabinet, and I don't know how we're going to replace just one cabinet and have it match the others without replacing all of the cabinets. And that's just the tip of the iceberg: who knows what damage is behind the walls and how complicated/expensive it will be to fix the source of the leak. Our community holds a master insurance policy for our complex. A few weeks ago our neighbor on the other side of the wall had a major issue that was caused by a blockage in the main pipeline to our building and she had to replace tons of walls and flooring and pay thousands of dollars out-of-pocket even though the source of the problem was clearly the community's responsibility. So I'm extremely concerned about the expense. I am also insanely upset because we were planning to put this place on the market to sell in 3 weeks, but now I have no idea if everything will be fixed and cleaned up by then. Why, oh, why, couldn't this have happened two and a half months later and been some other poor wretch's problem?!?! Add in the stress of living for who knows how long without a usable shower or tub and taking care of the girls while getting it taken care of all while Micah is gone all the time trying to finish his thesis and we are planning our move to Florida. AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! 

I'm stressed. This seems like the last thing we need right now.