Observation is Key

Nora is my baby, y'all.

She may be approaching the big "1," but let's face it: She still drinks breastmilk. She eats pureed foods. She can't walk, wears diapers, and sleeps in a crib. SHE'S A BABY.

But lately, it has become increasingly obvious that she's more than that. Her brain? is a sponge.

It started when she busted the word "Tessa" out of nowhere.

Then she started giving kisses.

And waving bye-bye.

And throwing tantrums when things don't go her way.

You know, all of these things that are "big girl" things. So, I suppose I should not have been surprised by her latest display of cognitive development.

I was standing by the door last week, talking to my mom on the way out, and was letting Nora play with my keys. (I never *used* to let her play with my keys, because yuck, GERMY KEYS! but it keeps her quiet and happy these days and that's a winner in my book.)

On this particular day, Nora was REEAACCHING from my arms and I honestly was not paying much attention, because she's quickly becoming a toddler, and toddlers don't want to be in your arms. Reaching is normal. Suddenly, though, my mom stopped the conversation and said, "Look at her. Look what she's doing."

Nora was trying to put the key in the lock on the door. She dropped the keys, I gave them back to her, and observed. She used both hands to separate the keys, singling out just one of them, then positioned it the right way in her hand. Sure enough, she then reached out toward the door knob and tried to put the key in the lock.

I mean, seriously. Are you kidding me with this kid?

No one ever TAUGHT her that keys go in the lock. But every time we come and go, we're holding her while we lock or unlock the house. Observation is key. (BWAHAHA, oh I kill myself.)

I'm not claiming that my little Noo Noo is smarter than the average bear. Rather, it is in times like this that I have a little OH-MY-GOSH-WHAT-HAPPENED-TO-MY-BABY? kind of hysterical mommy moment. Because the growing up? It is happening too fast.

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Glimpse

I'm alive!

Though some days, I've questioned that--the late nights up working on the house have resulted in some zombie-like mornings, that's for sure.

We're work-work-working away, trying to get as much done as possible so we can get settled and, you know, host a first birthday party. (We're CRAZY.)

What's important to know is that we're officially moved into the house. We got a crew together on Saturday and moved all of the big stuff, and started sleeping at the house that night. But we're not at all settled, that's for sure. So much work to be done, so much unpacking to do... I honestly try not to think about the entire scope of things, because then I get overwhelmed.

Anyway, all of this + no internet access = I don't have much time for a post to tell you all about what we're working on. Plus, it'll be more fun to show you and give more details when we have "before" AND "after" shots to share--so I'll just leave you with a few pics to give you a glimpse into our lives these days! Some of these are from the new house, some are from the mayhem that became the condo during the packing stages. Oh, and note--these are all taken with our point-and-shoot. Our DSLR hasn't even made it out of the bag in like a week. (SAD!)

Enjoy!

As you can see, we are dealing with some BEAUTIFUL carpet. And by "dealing," I mean RIPPING THAT SHIT OUT.It's really satisfying to take a knife to ugly carpet. I'm just sayin'.

Outdated style abounds. We've been removing wallpaper in our kitchen. We had contests about who could rip off the largest pieces without it tearing.

(I won.)

Who doesn't love a fresh coat of paint when they move into a place? We're no different--but trying to paint the entire house has been a challenge, to say the least. We have exactly *ONE* room done, and that is Nora's. This pic is of our living room. We have one coat done, but need to do a second one + priming and painting the trim. Ick.

Back at the condo... Moving day.

The moving crew. Love every single one of 'em!

And, of course, we had to end with a quick shot of our sweet girl playing in her new front yard.

More to come!

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The Last Night

Tonight is our last night in our condo--the place we have called home for six years, one month, and 19 days.

I'd be lying if I said it wasn't really sad to pack up all of our stuff. I'd also be lying if I said I didn't shed a few tears as I got Nora ready for bed tonight.

It's just a bittersweet life event, I suppose.

Added to the stress is that we still have no answers about our condo. The potential buyer who came through twice early last week contacted us on Monday, asking us to provide measurements for some of the rooms in our place. Seemed like a positive thing, because if she was wondering about measurements, she was trying to picture her life here in the condo. It at least meant we certainly weren't out of the running yet.

But since then, nothing. Apparently she's not in any hurry to make a decision.

We've had little luck with potential tenants as well. The one who we thought was a sure thing a few weeks ago is still dragging her heels. Any new ones we've met have not amounted in anything, either.

It's making us nervous.

We are meeting with another person on Sunday, and I have my fingers crossed SO HARD. It'll be the first person to see the place vacant, so I guess we'll see if that's an advantage or disadvantage.

But for now, I'm trying to concentrate on the positive. Today, I *finally* got some of the painting done in Nora's room. And even though it's not going to be finished for another few days at least, seeing the color start to come alive on her walls made it feel just a little bit like home.

I have so much I want to share (including PHOTOS!), but seriously no time to do it right now. I hope you'll all bear with me during this period of my life, since it is such a huge adjustment--I'd argue that this transition is much more difficult on me than it was to have a newborn baby!

To make blogging matters even more difficult, we're not going to have internet service at our house until August 30th (thanks for nothin', Time Warner). Soooo... hopefully I'll have a few minutes during a couple of lunch breaks to type up a few quick updates for y'all within the next 10 days. But we shall see.

I appreciate all of the well wishes everyone has been sending our way over the last several weeks and months, and I don't want to be greedy, so I won't ask for them again. I do hope, however, that I'm able to share good news with you very soon.

Hopefully very, very soon.

Life is overwhelming right now. Truly overwhelming. And guess what? We have a certain little lady's FIRST BIRTHDAY PARTY(!!!) in three weeks. Holy cow. So, stay tuned for that as well.

Here I am, signing out from the condo for the very last time...

I'll be back!

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29

So, this is my last birthday, right? Aren't all women forever 29? :)

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Unsettled

We finally got into our new house on Friday evening.

And after working tirelessly the entire weekend, trying to do as much as possible in too short a period of time, we are back in our condo for one more week. And instead of being ridiculously excited about it all, I am feeling...

...unsettled.

I am sore. From the muscles in my head and neck, all the way down to my toes. Carpet ripping, wallpaper stripping, ceiling painting, paint rolling and cutting in... it's exhausting. All of that work, and we still have MILES to go. In all reality, the house is nowhere near ready to move in. But we sort of have to, given that we can't get much done until we do. The issue we have is that Nora's bedtime is so early that we can't get over to the house to do anything during the week. And to become strictly weekend warriors would mean that it would take FOREVER for us to finish everything. At least, if we're living there, we'll be able to do things like painting after Nora is in bed each night.

So, this week, we're preparing to pick up and move from a perfectly good, remodeled, clean, lovely little condo into a bigger, creaky, messy, torn apart house. We're leaving "home" for... not home. It just feels like it's going to take forever to make this new place ours.

Is it normal to feel like this? For months, we've been discussing the thousands of reasons why it is such a good thing that we are moving. We've talked about the hundreds of things that we will not miss.

Now, I find myself feeling incredibly sad about leaving. I am feeling nostalgic, and catch myself thinking things like, "This is our last Sunday night in this condo. We will never again enjoy a weekend here." I think about how this is the only home that Nora has ever known, how she's comfortable here and knows it's her house. And how we'll be taking her away from it forever. AND IT MAKES ME WANT TO CRY. I swear, tears are welling up in my eyes as I type it this very minute.

Adding to the unsettling feelings is the fact that we still do not have a resolution for the condo. Still no word from the (seemingly promising) buyers who came through the past few weeks, so we're assuming nothing is going to happen there. And now the tenant who we thought was a sure thing is being a little wishy-washy with us, so we're not feeling very confident about that, either.

So, I prepare to pack. To leave comfort and head to a place that still feels like someone else's house.

I hope it's going to start feeling like home soon.

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Eleven Months Old

Dear Nora,

It’s coming. Your first birthday, I mean. I cannot believe that we are already approaching the one-year mark with you in our lives. By the time I write your next letter, we will be able to describe your age with the word “year.” Whoa.

You are SO. MUCH. FUN right now. You are still growing and changing each day, right before our eyes. In the short time since your 10-month letter, you have done so much.

For starters, you are no longer toothless. Your first tooth FINALLY popped through in the middle of July, and your second one surfaced this past week. You’re still drooling more than usual, so I’m already wondering if there are others not far behind. And with those new teeth, you’ve already managed to destroy your beautiful crib.

Alright, maybe I’m over-exaggerating a bit. But early this week, I leaned over the side of your crib and happened to notice a few dozen hash marks on the backside. I had seen you putting your mouth on the rail, but I never imagined that your ONE tooth (at the time) could’ve done that much damage. Come to find out, I think the reason you were so determined to chew on something like wood was because that second tooth was bothering you. Lesson learned. I quickly fashioned a crib rail guard out of receiving blankets and some twine-like rope. It looks ugly, but it’s been doing the job while we wait for Grammy to make you a real one out of fabric.

Another newfound “talent” you are exercising with your teeth? BITING. Biting ME. You know, when you’re nursing. All I can say about that is “OUCH.” Thankfully, it is not happening often (yet), but you surprised me a few times earlier this week. Both times, I quickly gasped and said, “OUCH! NO!” very sternly, and you cried like I had just ended your world. Of course, it killed me to make you sad, but you’ve gotta learn, right? I’m sure it’s not the last time you’ll be scolded!

On that same note, we are STILL breastfeeding. Hooray! There were many days this month when I thought about throwing in the towel with that damn breast pump, but I stuck it out. Now, it’s amazing to think that there’s only one more month. In fact, thanks to a healthy freezer stash, I might not even have to make it that far. We’ve been chipping away at my reserves for a while now, since I haven’t quite been meeting your milk intake, but we might have enough to allow me to quit the pump a bit early. As of now, I plan to nurse you in the mornings and at night for a while longer, but we’ll see how it goes. Most importantly, it looks like we are actually going to make it to my one-year goal of exclusive breastfeeding. Amazing!

Finger foods are going OK. There are some that you love—bananas, for instance—but there are other things that you won’t even really try at this point. It’s a little frustrating, because I REALLY hope you’re not a picky eater. For now, I’m choosing to believe that it’s still early, and you will get better with time. You eat pretty much anything as long as it is pureed, so I don’t think it’s a flavor issue—just a sensory/texture sensitivity that might be holding you back a little. We’ll keep working on it. For now, when you don’t like something, you toss it off your tray for Tessa to enjoy—at least it keeps Daddy and I from having to do a lot of clean up!

You can pull yourself up to a stand now. You mostly do it in your crib, but you also manage to do it on other things as well—your activity table, the railings by the stairs, our laps, and even the TV stand. Pretty much anywhere you can get a firm grip, you are happy to pull up to stand.

You’ve become an expert at the “Army crawl,” and have started to get up on your hands and knees more. We think you’re going to move to a “real” crawl before you walk, that’s for sure. You’re all over the place now, which means more work for Mommy and Daddy as we chase you around and pull you away from things like electrical cords, outlets, shoes, and (your favorite) the dog’s water bowl. We will most definitely be baby-proofing at the new house!

That’s right, my love: we closed on our new house today! Perhaps that is the biggest milestone of all. You will have a (much) bigger room, a whole downstairs to explore, and a YARD. We are ecstatic. In a week or so, we will be moving in, and I hope that you will take the transition in stride.

We ditched the pacifier this month. It was one of those things that just kind of happened. We didn’t think you REALLY needed it, and after a few days of an adjustment period, you were fine about it. We decided to get rid of it because we figured it would be easier to do it now than when you’re older. You don’t seem to miss it anymore! You have, however, become attached to your lovies for sleep. Last night, you were doing your normal play-in-your-crib thing before bed, and suddenly, you started SCREAMING. I knew it was not a normal cry for you, so I went in to check on you, to find you standing at the side of the crib, with your lovey on the floor right beneath you. You were DEVASTATED. As soon as I rescued lovey and gave him back to you, your crying returned to your normal tired cry. It was easy to see you were relieved.

By FAR the cutest thing you began doing this month? KISSES. You give kisses! It is so hilarious and sweet, and pretty much the most awesome thing ever. When we say “Nora, give me a kiss!” you lean in—sometimes with your mouth wide open, sometimes with it closed—and put your mouth against ours for a few seconds. I could seriously die, it is THAT cute.

You point at things now. To see your little pointer finger sticking up in the air is adorable. You “sing.” You "dance" to pretty much any kind of music--music from your toys, the commercials on TV, on the radio in the car. When you're in your car seat, you do this little "bop" that is your version of dancing while restrained. It's hilarious. You love cell phones and remotes (what kid doesn’t?). You still won’t drink out of a sippy cup. You like to crawl underneath things. You wake up a little earlier than you used to. You give me a heart attack when you try to pull up to stand in the bath.

You are officially over your stranger danger. You let other people hold you (I’ll tell you, the grandparents are THRILLED!), even people whom you just met. As much as we loved how you were attached to us, I’ll admit that it’s really nice not to have to worry about you every second when we are with others. You allow other people to entertain and care for you now. It’s so great to see you share yourself with others like you do with us. You are irresistibly cute, you know. You’re quite popular these days!

We’re going to be busy with the house this month, but I’m going to take special care to make sure to cherish all of my moments with you. As we get closer to a year, it feels like your infancy is suddenly slipping through my fingers. I need to enjoy every second while it lasts. I have to say, though, that I sure am loving the toddler you’re becoming.

My love for you is big enough to stretch around the world.

Kisses,
Mommy

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House Drama

Clearly, I have a one-track mind this week. Sorry if you're bored with my house buying/selling posts. At the very least, I should move on to bitching about house redecorating/renovating soon, if that makes you feel any better.

Sadly, I don't have any news to report regarding the prospective buyer who came through here for a second look last night. Apparently, she still hasn't made her decision between our place and the other one she had placed in her "top two." Our realtor says that most buyers aren't moving very quickly in this market, so I guess we just have to be patient. Kind of difficult to do when you're running out of time!

Earlier tonight, I spoke to the woman who is interested in renting, and now she is throwing a curve ball into the situation--she is contemplating buying, too! This could obviously be a good thing, it could end up being nothing, or it could be a bad thing. The way we see it, this could turn out one of three ways: 1) She could end up buying our condo, which would be amazing (obviously). 2) She could end up ditching the idea of buying and rent, like she originally planned. Or 3) She could decide she wants to buy, but not buy from us, which would suck (obviously). Needless to say, until she wraps her head around what she's going to do, we're in a holding pattern there, too.

Add on top of all of this a wild card... another prospective buyer came through here a week ago with our old realtor, but said it would be a few weeks before she made a decision. We don't expect to hear from her again, but I guess you never know.

ALL OF THIS SUSPENSE IS KILLING ME.

Now, on the buying side... we learned today just how much we truly hate our sellers.

I got a call today from our realtor, saying that she had heard from the sellers' realtor with some bad news. "He says the sellers can't be out of the house until probably 5:00 p.m. Friday," she tells me.

What the WHAT?

We're closing at 1:00 p.m. tomorrow (Thursday), mind you. They close on their new place immediately afterward, at 2:00 p.m.

I called our attorney immediately, and upon hearing this, she got angry on our behalf and said that there is no reason why they can't be out of the house tomorrow. She said that if they had planned properly, they would have their stuff all packed up before going to closing, at which point they receive the keys to their new place and can take the stuff over right away. She said she was going to call the sellers' attorney to find out what the deal is.

What do we end up finding out? The stupid sellers scheduled the moving truck for Friday morning. You know, a good 18 hours after the house is OURS. Apparently they didn't realize that when you close on the sale, THE HOUSE IS NO LONGER YOURS. What kills us is that we were originally supposed to close today (Wednesday). And they didn't schedule movers until Friday? Who the hell are these people?

After a lot of back and forth, ("We can't be out until Friday evening." "You WILL be out by noon.") yada yada yada, it has been determined that we will be entering into a post-possession agreement with the sellers during which they will be paying us "rent" for every day that they continue to occupy the damn house. So, at the very least, they will owe us for Thursday-Friday. If they're not out by noon on Friday (our specified deadline), they will owe us for ANOTHER day. In addition, they need to put a lovely chunk of cash into an escrow account at our attorney's office until we are able to get in there for our final walk-through.

Hopefully this encourages them to haul ass.

Apparently this is not an unusual situation, but our attorney said that it kills her every.single.time. People just assume that they can stay in the house after closing. I cannot comprehend this way of thinking AT ALL.

Our sellers have been less than stellar to work with throughout this entire process, so we're certainly not in any hurry to do them any favors. And I'm sure we're not going to be on the top of their "nice list," either, so I'm sure we can expect the house to be left in less-than-ideal condition. Oh well, it's not like we weren't going to get in there and scrub it from top to bottom anyway.

We better have keys to our house on Friday. I'm just sayin'.

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No Word.

The repeat showing was at 6:00 p.m. tonight. It was another hectic day at work, and we rushed home to do a last-minute pick-up of the house before hustling out the door just prior to the appointment.

We went to Home Depot to pick up a few painting supplies we need for the new house.

By the time we returned, the prospective buyer was gone, and unfortunately, we haven't heard a thing since then.

We're not sure if that's a good thing, or a bad thing.

Yesterday, when they left after the first showing, they called our realtor right away, saying that while our place was beautiful, they were "just starting the search" and "not ready to buy." And then six hours later, we found out that things had apparently changed, and we were now in the "top 2."

And now, we know nothing more.

Please continue to send positive vibes our way (we certainly appreciate all of your kind thoughts and words so far!). We're just anxious to have some kind of an answer either way.

Our realtor says that like most buyers, they probably just want to talk it through and then sleep on it, and he'll follow up in the morning. Until then, we are on pins and needles. C'mon, baby.

COME ON.

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Juggling

There are so many balls up in the air in our lives right now. It'll be interesting to see where they all land when this is said and done.

First off, I need to selfishly request good thoughts and prayers. I'll back up a second and say that we re-listed our house with a new realtor on Friday. Yesterday, we got a call from him saying that we had a showing scheduled for 10:30 this morning. It was encouraging, sure, but we've had our fair share of showings, and none have ever resulted anything, so we kept realistic expectations.

I left work and got Tessa out of the house, then drove down the street a little bit and just sat in the car with my phone while I waited for the showing to be over. I saw the realtor and the woman go in, then come back out 20 minutes later. Our realtor soon called me (before I even got back into the house) to tell me that he had received a call from the buyer's realtor, and while the place showed beautifully and it was "one of the best we've seen," she is just starting her search and not ready to buy yet.

Everything we've heard before. What a drag.

Around 5:00 p.m., though, I got another call from our realtor. I thought maybe it would be for another showing, but to my surprise, he said that the woman from this morning wants to come back tomorrow with her adult daughter. He said he was told we are in the "top two," and she just wants her daughter's opinion on each of them. We also found out she is a noncontingent buyer.

Talk about a turn of events! I asked our realtor what he thought had changed in the six hours since we had last heard from her, and he said that he assumed they had been to see other comparable properties and saw that most of them in this price range are in crap shape, so it made her realize that perhaps she should jump on the ones that are great. Hmm. I guess we'll see.

Now, we're anxious to pull out all of the stops to convince this lady that OUR property is the one she wants! How amazing would it be, after more than six months of this crap, to sell just days before closing on our new house? I'm not counting on it, of course, but it's hard not to get our hopes up a little. This is our first repeat appointment!

So, that's where the thoughts and prayers come in. Please cross all appropriate appendages for us that this is what we've been waiting for? It would be much appreciated!

In the meantime, we're also waiting on an application from a potential tenant that we met with on Saturday morning. She LOVES the place and really wants it, but we've been taking our time working with her because we're trying to buy ourselves some more time to sell. I told her to take her time with the application--she's a great possibility (assuming her credit comes back OK), but we'd still love to sell, of course. A *third* possibility right now--we have some friends who are interested in possibly renting from us as well. It's a long story, but they actually responded to our Craigslist ad, not knowing it was us. How funny is that?

Anyway, it's great to have activity around our place, that's for sure. We're hoping that SOMETHING positive comes from all of this. While the interest in it is comforting, it's still unsettling to not yet know how this is all going to end.

Shifting gears to our new house... We found out on Friday that we are officially cleared to close. This morning, when I spoke to our attorney, we scheduled closing for Wednesday, which had been the plan all along. A few hours later, however, I got another call saying that the sellers aren't able to close on their new place until Thursday, and won't be able to move out--so WE can't close until Thursday now, either. Not entirely unusual, I'm told, but damn, this sucks. We're not convinced that they're going to be able to be out on Thursday, either--even if we *do* close! Obviously, that's all up in the air right now. We won't really know until later this week, I guess. I took a half day off from work on Friday to spend the afternoon painting, and I'm going to pissed if I can't even get in there!

Between the attorney, realtors, and insurance people, I spent probably 2+ hours on the phone today. Ugh! The good news is that after three different quotes, we ended up saving more than 50% off of the original homeowner's insurance quote we received. It certainly paid to call around!

That is the latest around these parts. Not sure when we're going to be able to go into our new house. Not sure if we'll be signing a lease with a tenant, or working with an offer. But we sure do hope for the latter. Keep us in your thoughts tomorrow, and we'll update when we can. It's a start to another crazy week; how is it only Monday??

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Pack Knack

As our closing date for our new house is approaching, I've come to realize something a little startling: We have no idea how to pack.

I mean, sure. Throw things in a box, throw crap in the car/van/truck, take it to new house. It doesn't sound complicated, which is probably why I've never really put much thought into it before. But now that it is upon us, we don't really know where to start. It's one of those things that is so overwhelming, it's paralyzing.

I think back to all of the times that we've moved--to/from college four years in a row. And, well, when we moved into this condo six years ago. All of those times, we weren't moving much, since we were really only moving ONE ROOM worth of stuff for each of us.

Six years later, we've accumulated all of the things that make a place a true home. A couch, dishes, kitchen gadgets and appliances, dining room furniture, TV stand with large flat-screen TV, a whole set of baby furniture, tools, bikes, and it goes on and on and on. Needless to say, it's a bit more complicated this time around.

I'm left wondering how far in advance we should be packing things up. What we should pack up first. What we should leave for last minute on moving day. What size U-Haul we should reserve. How we protect big things (dining room table and chairs, for instance) from getting damaged. I'm thinking there should probably be a plan in place. If we wing it, I'm afraid the move will take FOREVER.

How does this work? Is there a proven method to this madness?

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