First of all, I can’t BELIEVE it has been 2 MONTHS since my last post. I knew it had been a while, but whoa…did not realize. I can tell you the reason. I wanted to post many, many times, in the last few weeks especially, but I had this “I do not want to mess with the ether right now” vibe going on. We were on the cusp of selling our house after having been on the market for almost a year, and somehow, I thought, if I write about this, it will wreck. So I kept it all to myself, satisfying the urge with obscure status updates on facebook that I knew some people would get enough to ask questions.
So superstition be darned, I am writing about it now because 1) it is 5:30 in the morning and I’m awake 2) I finally feel like a quasi-normal human being as this freak show of a common cold the whole family suffered is finally winding down and 3) I finally feel safe enough to feel like YES it is actually going to happen….WE’RE MOVING!!
In my best Axl Rose… “knock knock knockin’ on cyber woooooood.”
I guess the stress of going through this process (which was way more stressful than the year of attempting to keep a pristine house with a baby/toddler in it…who knew?) got the better of our immune systems. I had what I described to be the worst bug of the year by myself first (thankfully Evan and Mike didn’t get it) and then when they started to get sick, I thought they finally got it. But unfortunately for me, this was a new bug, and it made the old bug look like Rainbow Brite. I haven’t been this sick since my college days when Stress was study buddy. I went to the doctor and got some antibiotics so my brain doesn’t feel like it’s going to burst out of my eardrum if I lean too far forward anymore, so that’s good. Poor little Evan has woken up for the last two nights…but I am happy to report that besides these two nights, he is finally sleeping really well. Yipee! But anyway, he’s the reason I’m up…and since it’s early morning already, and there’s no way I can go back to sleep, I decided I’m way overdue for a post. K, ’nuff about yucky stuff. We’re going to live. On to the fun stuff.
So, just in time for Evan to start climbing up on furniture, we are moving out of our townhome. With four flights of stairs and the lovely loft, perfect for climbing the sofa and launching yourself out into upper dining room stratosphere, I am glad that we are moving to a house that is a little more mommy-nerve friendly. This has been a great place to live, especially when we were kidless. I will miss it…especially all the memories that were created here: dating Mike, being engaged to Mike, getting married to Mike, bringing home Evan, watching him grow from baby into toddler. It is sad to know that Evan will never remember his first home. But, we need to move on. We need a more practical space and a yard to call our own where we can set up a sand box and leave our toys in the grass. I’m going to miss my Mableton friends too…at least we are not moving across country!
This past year has been an ordeal of sorts, but nothing compared to what I’d call hardship in the sense so many people are experiencing right now…and for that, I’m extremely grateful. I’m just really excited that, in a little more than a month, I can finally unpack my family portraits and my art stuff and everything we had to pack away to make our home become someone else’s. YAY!!
So we lost money on our house. Oh well. A bitter pill to swallow but we made it up on the other side. We found a home in a great n’bhood that we would never in a million years be able to afford five years ago. One thing about this process that surprised us is that we thought it would be easy to find our perfect new home and it was NOT. We had a wishlist that was reasonable I thought, especially with so much inventory out there. We must’ve looked at over 50 houses before we found the right one, and even the one we found did not knock us over the first time we walked through. It grew on us, and now we are really excited about it. We had to compromise on our wishlist, but I think we compromised well. It is a huge house, with plenty of room to grow into…with a perfect backyard. Plenty of space to play and maybe have a garden if we get it fenced in…which we will have to eventually. And the best thing about it, after experiencing the loss over this home, is that it feels like a very safe investment. It is the least expensive home in a n’bhood that has held most of its value from what we can tell and since we will be there for a long time, I don’t think we can lose. That was a really important factor in choosing this house because we ended up at the top of our price range, instead of the middle. We are a little anxious about that, but I think it will prove the smart choice in the end. The location is great too…right smack in the middle of where my West Cobb mom’s club hangs out, and in a great school district. I love it and I’m so excited. I’ve started packing already!
Now, I have to wait and see if Mike will let me publish this now, because he is even mor paranoid than me that something will happen if we disturb the ether. So, for now, I will have to be happy with just getting it out of my brain.
And some Evan stuff:
Current age: 14 1/2 months. Current weight: 22.8lbs. Words he can say: Dights! (Light), Uh-oh, No, Eyes (hasn’t said this in a long time, was his first after dada), MomMomMom (usually when begging and sounding pitiful), Hot (whispered around hot and cold things), Hat (also whispered, b/c it sounds like hot?). Words he can sign: Music, Fan, Eat, More, All Done. Body parts he knows: belly button (proudly displayed with shirt up), head, hair, tongue/teeth (same difference, right?). Favorite Dance: The Hokey Pokey (shakes head and turns himself around randomly during song). Favorite activities: Putting on hats or draping things over his head and shoulders and looking at himself in the fireplace glass, and dancing to music, which he asks to be put on whenever it’s off. We will have to get him a mirror for the new house. Recent milestones: can follow simple directions like “put your clothes in the dirty clothes basket,” or “close the door.” Can climb up and go down the slide at the park entirely on his own. Climbs up onto chairs or upside down containers. My favorite thing I’ve taught him recently: giving eskimo kisses!
