Yesterday was positively lovely. Weather was nice, the boys were fantastic, I got loads done. Dinner was lovely, and Ken came home with some unexpected, but good, news. The short of it is that he’s been given a bonus. The company, noticing that they had been losing a few engineers, identified some engineers (3) who were a) vital and b) would be sorely missed were they to leave. Ken was one of those. It’s a nice compliment, and very assuring that his job is so stable. Ken, however, doesn’t take compliments. At all. He either ignores them or makes up excuses for them (verbally or in his mind). He can’t ignore this, though, and I’m pressuring him to do something special with the money instead of just rolling it into the budget. The day ended with the power going out and forcing us to deal with no light, no computer/tele/video games, no background noises from appliances. Just the rain, as it started to fall shortly thereafter.

All in all, it was lovely.

FINALLY I’ve had a few moments to edit and share pictures and video of my two adorable Mini’s!

First we’ve a bunch from last weekend when we went to Child’s Park:

Ethan wandering around the smaller falls with Daddy. Oh, and he walks on water, too. Couldn’t remember if I’ve ever mentioned that or not…

Next is the plethora of Victor images…

Cutest.baby.evar!
His growling face
Charge!
At the park
Soft!
Woe is me.
UP!
Look, Ma! One hand!
Something bigger.
Cruising along Daddy’s leg, and some more.
The next challenge! Watch me go!

Victor’s new word (14mb), Victor’s first forays into motion (20mb), and after crawling comes… (15mb) (sorry the files are so big)

Wow are we busy!  This weekend we bought a chest freezer, I ordered trees and shrubs and bulbs to plant – many of which won’t be shipped for a few months when they’ve gone dormant – yarn, kid stuff (like a new feeding chair for Victor), and started getting serious about what needs to be done.  The garage and office were cleared of many of the boxes in them (yay for a full basement!).  We next have to set up a workshop in the garage and get started on the projects.  Art desk for Ethan, bench for the foyer, and the office bookshelves/window seat are highest on the list.  While it’s warm, though, we want to get landscaping done (plus I have some shrubs and many many bulbs being shipped here, now – fyi, Springhill Nursery has a fantastic “one cent” sale going on where you double your order for one penny more on certain items) and there’s a lot to do.  The ground needs to have at least some of the rocks moved so we can use them out back.  We won’t get any of the hardscaping done out back this year, so we need to do some temporary erosion control in the form of landscape fabric (held down by… rocks!).  Once the ground is level-ish, we’re going to order gads of soil and seed what will become the front/side lawn.  I’ll also be planting the flower bed in the front of the house and some along the side of the house as well as road-side bulbs for next spring.  I need to plant some garlic, too, though whether it goes where the vegetable garden is going, or just among the side flower bed I don’t know.

The place we’re getting our soil from, sadly, doesn’t carry Shurpack otherwise we’d  be getting some of that and doing the driveway too (it needs help already because the ground/gravel is soft and it’s steep).  I don’t know if we’ll do that this year or not.  It’d be nice to, but we’re on a tight schedule and have a LOT of things to do.

Once that’s done, Ken’s work will move indoors, as stated above.  After the office is done, he’ll move on to finishing the Bonus room.  I’ll be working outdoors off and on, getting my plantings done.  Once the Arbor Foundation sends me my trees (sooo many trees!) come frozen ground, I’ll be planting the hedge along the front of the house (60′) and putting some trees along the hill below that.  Somewhere in there we need to move a crazy amount of dead wood that’s laying about the property, as well as take down some trees that are either dead or dying or threatening to fall on our shiny new house.  I have no idea how we’re going to get those last ones down without them falling on our shiny new house.  We’ll have to see.

Right now I’ve lunch to make for someone who’s being an exceptionally good boy today (but shhh! don’t tell him I said that!).  He was talking this morning about a birthday party (he saw some new books we bought him sitting on the table, undelivered yet) so some time this week Ken’s going to pick up some party hats and balloons and we’ll make it a proper birthday party (though with only us as attendees).

Wait.  Didn’t I mention the books?  Sharon visited this weekend so Ken and I were able to get out Saturday, alone, to visit Sears and most importantly the bookstore.  LOVE the bookstore.  Books, like houses, are never a bad investment (moreso, really).  We got some manga we’ve been falling behind on and I bought Jacqueline Carey’s Kushiel’s Scion and Anne Bishop’s Sebastian.  I SO WANT TO BUT WON’T start reading them as my final copy of Harry Potter should be arriving today (though it hasn’t yet, so I’m starting to wonder if it’ll be tomorrow, instead) from Jess.  She’s been an absolute dear and helped me finish my HP book collection from a Canadian publisher.  I’ll have two copies of Half-blood Prince, but ahh well.  The books previous to that one were Dad’s, and though he never got to read Order of the Phoenix I know he would have loved it and it means so very much to me to have these books.  He and I shared a passion for reading, and almost never was there a time that Dad didn’t have a book in his pocket – he even made sure that his jackets always had an inner pocket big enough to carry a mass-market paperback book in.

LUNCH!

It is now completely and totally official.  The old house is sold!  It is gone!  Never again to cloud our vision with it’s bug-ness and it’s stupidly-vaulted-ceilings-that-trap-heat-ness and it’s layout of poor design.  Someone.else’s.problem.

Today wasn’t all good, sadly.  The title person, we shall call her “Little Girl” because she looked all of 12yrs old, was poorly organized.  Poorly.  Nobody informed us that I had to be there (the house was bought by Ken, before we were married) so Ken drove there (20 mins) then rushed back to get me and the boys (right as lunch was being put on the stove and Victor was due for a nap) and we rushed back so’s I could sign forms.  The state had kindly supplied a Deed addendum to include me after we got married (but not informed us of this).  Aren’t they niiiice?  Little Girl also incorrectly calculated all the percentage payoffs for the realtors.  Little Girl also forgot the cheques *insert Valley Girl giggle here* at her office in Stroud (20 mins further away).  Thank goodness the boys were so good, and we were parked facing a busy road during the signings so they could watch the cars.  Thank goodness, too, for the coffee shop we were parked in front of in Stroud so I could run in and buy Ethan some cookies because it was so far past his lunch time.

And then, when we went to drop off our profit, we discovered the chequebook we’ve been using the past few weeks?  Old account.  Closed account.  Nothing the bank can do.  NSF fees will be pouring in for us in the next 10-15 business days.  *le sigh*

However, Sharon is coming tonight to visit, so we can leave the boys with her *maniacal laughter* while Ken and I go shopping at Sears tomorrow.  We’re sorely tempted to not come back.

Good thing the boys are cute.  Pains in the ass, but cute pains.

Another growth spurt is upon us.  This morning, instead of being up at 6-6:30 he slept until 8!  Then his morning nap, steadily 30mins, was an hour long.  I wonder how big he’ll get.

Holy Carp, people!  Today he’s started officially, properly cross-crawling (though when he’s in a hurry he still hikes one foot up and crawls on one knee and “walks” with the other foot because obviously that’s faster).  Today he’s started officially babbling.  We went from squeals and giggles to adadadababimana.  Ethan is helping by getting right up in his face and saying “Dada!” to him.   For the past few days he’s been pulling himself up to stand – the other day he used the ottoman (which is close to top-of-his-head level) – he’s now doing it on the couch (taller than him) and anything else he can get his hands on (like the walls, if he’s feeling urgent).  I’ve even been able to hold his hands and get him to step forward a few steps.  His balance while standing is pretty non-existent, but still!  Standing!  Cross-crawling!  Babbling!  Almost-cruising!  ALL TODAY!

I’m just going to go stare blankly at this marvel of hurried milestones…

Well, it seems everyone liked the Cranberry red, and 50% liked the Leaf green (me too!! but I’m imPATIENT) and 50% the Mist grey (so did Ken, and he got all passive-agressive sulky when I wanted to go with something more colourful because he prefers the neutrals – he was mostly kidding with the sulking). So now I’m torn. I like all three. I truly can’t wait for the green. I have a grey sweater/jacket already, but it’s a tad snug-ish and it’s calf-length and plain (I love it, though). I like the red, but worry about it matching clothes or being tooo red and tooo bright. If I were made of money I’d do this sweater in grey and this sweater in the red. However, I’m not. So I’ll wait a few more days – I can’t order until this weekend regardless – and see which way I’m inspired to go.

Speaking of going, I have to… there’s a baby on “tall knees” digging in a box next to me and who’s about to eat my Canadian Flag (thank you Governmental offers!).

This week, finally, I started living in my new house.  I’ve been here the whole time, eating, sleeping, etc, but not living.  I’ve been worrying and planning and painting and unpacking things and chasing kids, until now.  This week I baked bread again.  This week I started knitting again (well, kinda last week, but still).  This week I stopped sitting up straight and slouched down into the new house; wiggling a bit to find the comfy spot.  I suspect it all has to do with the Dieffenbachia. It’s one of those, the short, bushy, small leaved ones that we got as part of a live-plant-gift-basket when Ken bought the old house.  It grew from one little 6″ tall stalk into something that well over-fills an 8″ wide pot and stands about 18″ tall.  Ken brought it, and the other house plants (minus the trees since they don’t fit in the car – they come tomorrow in the Uhaul along with our remaining furniture), last weekend.  Behind our corner sink there has been a perfect, empty spot eagerly waiting for that plant.  It is filled, and now this feels like home.  Dieffenbachia always remind me of my Mom and that magical place in my childhood memories that encompasses home.  Do you have something like that?

Ok people, I need help deciding on a colour. Here’s the choices I’ve got for making myself this jacket. Take to mind that I’m bigger than she is so dainty doesn’t work for me. Automatically I can say I like the green, but it isn’t available until the end of October and that’s entirely too long a wait for my eager hands. I don’t think the black, white, grey, brown, or the bright purple will work for me, but like the other colours about equally (well, I’m leaning towards two, but…). Help a girl out, would you?

The weather’s supposed to be nice – cool but sunny – and it’s our last, free weekend, so we’re going to Child’s Park tomorrow. I want pictures of my boys there. I want to breathe sniffle the air (I’ve caught another cold) and let it relax me. I want to introduce Victor to fresh, falling water and see Ethan’s excitement at being someplace super cool.

I call this the last, free weekend because I’m good at stressing myself out over the future (ask Ken, I’m a pro at the dramatic) and as of this Friday the old house closes (woohoo!) and we get a big.fat.cheque. Money is lovely, but is a responsibility. We have debt to pay off, first and foremost, but then there’s a long list of things to get (garage door openers, snow blower, water treatment system, yarn, convertible car seats – you know, important things) and an even longer list of things to do (landscaping, room finishing, etc). We’re tentatively planning on renting another U-haul for Thursday and getting the last of our things out of the house – the things that made it pretend to almost look lived in sortof. Furniture of which most goes into the basement, house plants, etc.

Ken’s also booked me a massage for Monday after he gets off work. Last weekend he hurt his back and has had a few trips to a local chiropractic office this week – they have an on-staff masseur and massages are apparently covered by our health plan. He’s calling it a preventative measure for me “in case there’s something wrong with your back!” but I know he’s just trying to get me out of the house and a little spoiled. He spoils me himself, but this time it seems he’s deferring to a professional. Damn but I love him!

The new sound du jour in our house is Screaming. I assure you that these are not unhappy screams. It all started when Victor found his voice. And then Ethan’s. Now, they scream to get each other’s attention. They scream with joy. They scream to piss us off (well, that might just be an unhappy side effect). Ken and I are both quiet people, so it works. Very.very.well. If Ethan’s quietly playing upstairs in the play area (not as often an occurrence as it used to be), and Victor’s downstairs and I’m just not enough stimulation… Victor screams to get Ethan’s attention and keeps going (pausing to make sure he’s got Ethan’s attention and to gauge how much more is needed) until Ethan comes running. Ethan will start screaming whenever they’re both downstairs and he wants to get Victor’s attention to play. He’ll get right down into Victor’s face and laugh… and wait. He keeps this up until Victor starts going after him, at which point Ethan screams because “oh no! Victor is chasing me!”

We are at an absolute loss of what to do. It’s pretty rare that Ethan screams because he’s upset, and then we deal with it fairly well, I think. But how to deal with the happy screams? How do we explain to him, and have it stick, to keep his voice down when he’s just.so.happy/excited? We’ve tried explaining ad infinitum, we’ve tried yelling (how backward is that?) we’ve tried smacking him (no, not hard), we’ve tried punishing him, we’ve tried everything we can think of. He’s not easy to punish now since he’s pretty easy going about what bothers him (only time out, in his bad boy chair – the feeding chair pulled into the foyer where he can’t see/be seen or get down, works). He’s “spirited”, that’s for sure. I can’t say how frustrating this is or how inadequate it makes us feel. Is this just a phase he’s going through? Am I the least competent Mother that I can’t control him? I want to keep people away from our house so that nobody can know the monster we’re living with right now. Please, don’t come over. His roar is constant and frightening!

Well, Victor’s awake so I’ve got to go. Anybody have any suggestions?

How does it go so fast?! I’m always so busy it’s starting to get frustrating. I’ll do my best to sum up “lately”. Karlie and Dave visited the past two days. Dave’s very nice and great with kids. They were kind enough to watch Victor and Ethan last night and Ken and I went to see a movie. It was…bizarre being out without the kids. We saw Harry Potter. I was more than a little disappointed for a whole lot of reasons that I won’t get into. I’m looking forward, however, to the final book release this week. Jess is going to pick up a copy for me and mail it down, so I should have it sometime next week.

Victor is army crawling, and just shy of cross-crawling (one leg just keeps wanting to stand up and he’s not quite getting the coordination of the two together but making fast progress). His greatest temptation is Ken’s game controller cord, and he’ll positively race for it. We’ve started feeding him “solids” – mushed bananas thinned out and homemade applesauce. He adores the apples, and gobbles up two full/large ice cubes worth in no time flat. I’m hoping to start him on oatmeal this week. Yesterday Ken got Victor to sleep a while, during his afternoon nap, in his crib. This is major progress for us!
Ethan is being a pain, but he’s at that age and we’re hoping it passes very quickly. He’s losing his afternoon nap, which worries me since I don’t know how I’ll coordinate him not napping but letting Victor still sleep. Ethan’s also become a parrot lately, and getting him to repeat things is pretty entertaining. He picked up the word for and meaning of “soccer” though, and we have no idea where from! He just, suddenly, asked to play soccer the other day.

The house inspection went alright, save the septic problems. They didn’t discover any other problems though (phew!) so as soon as it’s pumped (Tues) and someone looks at the pump itself (this week) we should be good to go. Ken’s optimistic this won’t interrupt the schedule of the contract and it’ll all be done and over on July 27th. On July 28th, therefore, we’re making a big trip to Sears for a bunch of stuff that we need. In one pocket and out the other! I’ve been working on a design for our garden/landscaping to prepare for when we do have money and take advantage of some early-bird sales at a few plant sites. Today we did a walkabout of the house/land to decide where I want stuff and where Ken had assumed to put stuff. We’ve a lot of work ahead, but it’ll look nice! Once I’ve got it drawn up better I’ll show you what I have in mind.
That’s about it, right now. Things are kinda rough since it feels like so much time is going by that we could be doing stuff to the house but don’t have the time or energy or money to do but want to do pronto. The boys are making life hard because of their ages and temperments. Many’s the day I’m just so cranky at the end of the day because they’ve been whining/squealing all day and I’m just worn through. They get each other riled up and I’m a quiet-loving kind of person, so the screaming is just not my favourite noise – happy or otherwise. I know, I know… as with all things….

To show you how much I love you, I’ve finally uploaded the pics that have been sitting on my camera forEVER. I present them to you, gift for reading my blathering.

The incredible bendable baby!
This was during our painting before we moved in. Ethan playing right next to him and he’s conked right out.
See? I give him great toys to play with!
Kawaii!
I set this up just a few minutes ago to show you his self-dragging skills.<7.5mb)
…and his peeking skills. (7.7mb)

I also have a few of the house… the boys play area at the top of the stairs (we’ve since added a large, denim poof chair right in the middle). The cabinet to the immediate right will be going and a wingback chair will be in that space eventually too. We aren’t sure what colour to do it yet. Victor’s room all in blue and white. I’ve yet to get drapes though. The office (bookshelf wall) opposite the bookshelves and where the window seat will go (obviously). The colour has grown on me, and we’re going to do the shelves in a dark, mahogany coloured stain. The window cushion will be in this fabric (once I’ve ordered a sample and confirmed the colours are accurate), and the drapes will likely be a matching cream colour. We’ll also be putting open shelving on either side-wall beside the window seat (on the walls facing “you” to build the seat area out a bit) that we’ll paint white.

You know when there’s just so much piling up you start pretending it’s not there or putting it off in some manner just so you don’t have to deal with it?  Life is something like that right now.  Well, that or I’m just too busy and playing catchupcatchupcatchup that I haven’t the time to deal with anything other than most day to day stuff.

I need to write Victor’s letter, I need to figure out Ethan’s new sleeping thing cause he’s just not napping and I don’t know how to nap Victor when Ethan-the-LOUD is thundering around the house.  I need earplugs.  I need to drink more water.  I need to keep getting the inside of the house taken care of otherwise the momentum fails and we live out of boxes for the next few years.  I need to get the outside of the house taken care of while the weather’s still good.  I need the heat to tone.it.down.already!  I need to look back and see what we fed Ethan when he first started to eat because all I can remember is applesauce and Victor *loves* that, and bananas, but hates avocados and that means he’ll never eat anything but fruit ever again.  Obviously.

I need a break.

I’ve brought it up before, on an older version of this blog, but it’s great enough to bear repeating (especially for any new readers).  I’m a huge supporter and user of The Diva Cup.  Go through their FAQ (very “everyday” sorts of questions) and know that every question they answer I found the same answer to (well, except those that didn’t apply to me).

Can you feel it? No (though if you go with one of the “disposable” cups you might – I’ve used the Instead product and found it far inferior in comfort and very messy.  I also found that, after Victor’s birth, my canal was shorter and I cut the little end tab right off for comfort’s sake.).

Is it messy? No (and now I do find the more common options to be icky/messy).

Is it convenient? Holy moly YES!  I empty mine once a day (occasionally twice on really heavy days), when I’m in the shower.  Tampons last 4-6hrs for me (or used to, it’s been a while).  The rest of the time, aside from other symptoms, I mostly forget I’m on my period.  Truly.

Is it expensive?  Not really.  Think about how much you spend on tampons or pads per month (and about how those are going right to a landfill) and the fact that you’re continually buying those things.  This is a one time purchase that’ll last the rest of your life.

Does it leak?  When I’m having a heavy-flow day and it’s full to the brim, there *might* be a bit of spotting.  The first/second cycle after childbirth (with the subsequent muscle-tone weaknesses) had some spotting, too.  When I first started using it, the first few cycles I had a back-up liner on until I felt confident in my using it (everything has a learning curve).  Now, though, no.  It doesn’t leak.

I really, really encourage you to give it a try.  It really has changed how I view my period.  It used to be the worry of “do I have enough ’supplies’ (tampons, liners, etc)”, “will there be bathrooms nearby?”, “what if I leak?”, “need to bring the purse with the extra space in it”, etc.  It used to be the “ugh, more mess and fuss all day”.  Those are no longer concerns of mine.  On top of that, I never have to shell out another $6-8 for yet another box of tampons or liners.  I never have to add to a landfill because of my period.  I never have to worry about TSS.

I will caution you, though, on using other versions of this same product.  Like I said I tried the Instead product and it was much more trouble than it was worth (and this was after I’d learned to use the Diva cup) and it likely would have turned me off menstrual cups had I not already tried something better.  It’s comfortable, environmentally friendly, economical, easy and clean.  When was the last time you applied those to your period?

For a long, long time I’ve been on a search for the Ultimate Cardigan for Kelly. Trust me, harder than it seems. I don’t want anything too frumpy, anything too boring, anything too traditional, anything too modern. I’ve got one, though, that I think fits the bill. Starsky (keep scrolling for more pictures) from Knitty.com (well, one of the contributors), is a free pattern (w00t!) and quite cute, quite interesting enough, quite right. I’ll change it, of course. The cabling “banana tree” pattern isn’t quite what I want (I’d rather something more traditional, celtic cabling so I’ll design something myself), and I’m still uncertain whether I’ll do the belt or omit that and incorporate some buttons (I can decide that after most of it’s done). I won’t likely be doing it in white either, though the yarn I’m using has some new colours coming out in august (let’s hope it’s on sale, since though it’s a good price now I’d love a better price!) so I can’t say what colour it *will* be. Do I go with a deeper/brighter colour that stands out, or something more neutral (but not white)? Well, we’ll see in a month or so. I may be picking up a few other yarns on sale at the time (tehee). I’ll also likely do the knitting in one big piece, instead of 3 (excluding arms, which kinda have to be separate), since I hate HATE sewing up knitting – it never looks as nice as the knitted parts.

First, though, I’ll finish this scarf and maybe design a matching hat and/or mitts/gloves to go with it – depending on how much yarn I’ve left once it’s done.