6/12/08 Endings and Beginnings

The ending: Gabriel's last day of kindergarten was today!! The classroom was open for 20 minutes before the end, so parents could come and see the room and hang out. I was late, and I felt SO bad that Gabriel was waiting outside his classroom for me, looking around anxiously. But I did get some time there, and he showed me where he sat, and his cubby. My tough little cookie.

Gabriel and his teacher, and outside his classroom.

Gabriel and his best friend, Parth.

Gabriel and Parth talk a lot apparently -- Parth's father knew all about our move and remodel!! Parth is a really nice kid, talkative in an engaging way that reminds me a lot of Julian.

I took the day off work for Gabriel's last day of school, but also for another reason. It's always a dilemma for bloggers whether or not to write about the tough stuff, but out of respect I haven't written about what's going on with my Dad. But now there's no chance he'll read about it in my blog. Most of you know about it anyway.

The beginning: My sister and brother, bless their hearts, moved our father in to a very nice private facility in Pittsfield, MA today. We'd hoped to move him to traditional assisted living, but he didn't qualify, and so he went into the secure dementia facility. He's mid-stage Alzheimer's (never officially diagnosed but all signs point there), and while he's better off than most of the patients in the dementia facility, he's not nearly self-sufficient enough anymore for traditional assisted living.

We've been helping him live at home, alone in upstate rural NY for a year now after he lost his driver's license (another traumatic event for him and us), but the isolation has really taken its toll. Now my father is surrounded by very, very caring and nice people who are experts in handling dementia patients, and he'll have everything he needs. Except his mind.

The history of Alzheimer's on my Dad's side is strong and frightening. His mother died of it in her early 60s, as well as a grandmother and an aunt. In 2000, my sister and brother and I talked amongst ourselves with great concern about my father's increasing memory struggles. He was only 68, and probably could have been diagnosed, if he were willing, before then. This history, and my own occasional blankouts (which way do you turn a key? though that's probably more migraine-related) don't bode well for me.

But I'm sure as heck not going to make my demise as difficult on my children as my Dad did on me and my sister and brother. Think it's noble to tell your kids to just let you die or take out out to a field and shoot you before ever putting you in a nursing home? It's not. It's incredibly selfish and causes no end of stress and guilt for your children, who absolutely are not going to shoot you and absolutely are going to have to move you at some point. Alas, but I can't hold Dad accountable for any of the old sh*t that goes on in families anymore.

Fortunately, today he went willingly because he's very excited about the "brain fitness program." He really, really wants to get his memory back, and his focus on that since he's learned about "the program" has given him new spark. He believes he's there for the program, and when he gets better, he'll move back home. It's tricky at his level of understanding; there's no point in arguing with him that no, this is permanent, you're moving. And he's right -- if he gets his memory back, he will move home. He's physically very able. He's only 75. He'll likely ask at some point when he's going home, but the staff there are experts at dealing with dementia patints and know how to handle it.

A child-free friend once said to me, "You're not really a grownup until you have
kids, right?" and I found myself answering, "No, you're not really a grownup
until you're taking care of your parents." Kids make you a kid, babies make you...well, jello, but aging parents -- that's the real grownup stuff.

My house is in a-shambles (both of them). The city wants to charge us a fee for having more bedrooms than they have in their records. We still don't have our building permits. My father is starting the best new step possible in his life, but there is no good path from here for him. A few days without a migraine is rare.

And people think raising three kids is stressful?

Kids keep everything rooted, normal, moving along. They make me stop and trim fingernails, try on new summer shorts, sign up for day camps, read stories, talk about Legos, play tickle-chase with a guffawing toddler. They make me be a mom, a person that they need and love no matter what else is going on in my life. They're filled with joy and hope and optimism and want nothing more than to play and be happy. They can be annoying -- very annoying -- but not truly stressful.

I think I'll go give my new first-grader a hug and then go get the rest of them now.


6/12/08

6/11/08 Pajama Day

Last night we were talking about Pajama Day at school today, and commented that Gabriel should go in underpants, not Pull-Ups as he'd normally wear under pajamas. But apparently, he now doesn't want his peers to know he uses Pull-Ups, which led to my asking him if he wanted to try night-training again. He gave me a goofy "yes" answer, almost unwilling to talk about it.

And his Pull-Up was dry this morning!

But the best part is, he seemed to have decided to make it happen....er, or not happen, as the case may be. He explained that he was lying in bed, then suddenly his eyes popped open...he said he knew he had to go pee, thought about just going in his Pull-Up, then decided not to. He was very proud of himself for waking up. We're using a Pull-Up again tonight (he is a very heavy sleeper), but if he's dry, then it's genuine skivvies for him. I have a "feeling" this is finally it!

This morning Dave had an early meeting, so I did the big triple dropoff this morning. This included a wake-up call for our soon-to-be new reality: school started at 8:40 for all kids today, including PM kindergartners. This will be our life for many years to come, starting in August when Gabriel starts first grade. It was a scramble, but I got him there exactly at 8:40, Katrina in tow, Julian already dropped off.

First, they all 3 had breakfast together. I've taken to waiting to dress Katrina until after she's done dribbling milk all over herself.


Katrina asks every time I put her in the car where Gabriel is. I can tell more by her expression and gestures than her words, which sound something like "ih biy?" She points to his seat and her tone of voice and inquisitive face are clearly asking after him. Then when she sees him, she smiles and says "BIIIIIIHHHY!" Julian gets much the same reception, with a sort of "jhhhuuuuhhhh!" sound. It's very sweet to see her ask about her brothers, and it tickles them to no end.

My house is gone. GONE. It's a shell. You can't tell from the street, but three days of discrete interior demolition have been swift and unrelenting.

Here's my old kitchen.


Here's how it looks now. All that's left is the cute little boy (not pictured).


The old family room, or rather, a view of the kitchen from the family room. Notice that dark corner all the way on the right? That was where my sink was.


And now.


I thought I'd be rattled by seeing this...Dave sure was. He even said he wasn't sure any woman should have to see her house in a state like that. I was prepared to be upset, but I was more fascinated than anything. Ohh, so that's why the sun room's ceiling is higher! I never knew there was insulation in that wall! Gabriel was with me and he too was fascinated, took it all in stride.

Truth is, the house we're living in now is the one no woman should ever have to live in. What a mess! Unpacking is drudgerous and infinite...I can't even get a single room under control. If I get just 3 boxes done a day, they have to run out eventually, right?

Well, turns out, it's great fun for kids to unwrap stuff and discover what's inside! Gabriel got 3 boxes done tonight, each filled with individually-wrapped bowls, shakers, little dishes, and countless other tiny breakables. The best unpacking resource has been right under my nose all along!

Tomorrow's a really big day in many ways....an ending and a beginning. More on that...tomorrow.

6/11/08

6/10/08 The Moon

I was outside with the boys while Dave was bathing Katrina, and something or other was really bothering her and she was crying up a storm. It was really, really loud, punctuated by full-body screams, and the whole neighborhood must have heard it. It worried me rather than bothered me, despite the volume and intensity, because it sounded like painful crying instead of angry tantrumy crying.

Julian asked, "Can the moon hear Katrina?" I half-joked that she was pretty loud, it must be able to. "NO," said a scornful, skeptical Gabriel. "Of COURSE the moon can't hear Katrina." Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, Moon's Ears....ah, a childhood gone. "She has to be even louder than THAT for the moon to hear her!" Whew.

As soon as I was done trimming Gabriel's disgusting toenails, I went to check on her, and by then she was fine. A rear-end rash, best guess. It reminded me that we actually haven't had any major tantrums in a while.

Dave and I and our architect were livid together about something this jerk at the city building department told our architect today. He wants to charge us a "developmental impact fee" for adding bedrooms, which we're not doing, but he insists our house is a 2BR/1BA. And it was, 30 years ago, but has long since already been a 5BR. What makes him think it only has 2 bedrooms now? Friggin' realquest.com!!!!!! Never mind those pesky official city records!

I'm finding myself feeling almost insecure these days, I think because my home is so topsy-turvy, with projects everywhere. The kitchen still isn't unpacked, boxes are in every room, and it's just a mess. Nothing serene or comforting at all. And despite the rental's vastly improved kitchen, bright sunniness, attached garage and big leafy trees out front, I miss our house. Warts and all, it had character and quirkiness and unexpected spaces.

Anyway, that's the least of my worries right now. Much more pressing is the auditory range of an orbiting natural satellite.

6/10/08

6/9/08 The Big Dig

Just HOW many individually-wrapped glasses, dishes, vases, pitchers and countless other items can one person take?! By the time we get it all unpacked, we'll just have to pack it back up again!

And I had a busy day, even without trying to dig out from piles and piles of boxes.

Today was the last Musical Monday. First, our second-to-last Music Together class. Katrina played with my shoes for much of this, putting them on me and then playing with them herself while the rest of us made music. Sigh. But she had a good time (as long as I didn't interfere with SHOES) and then so did I.


Here's Katrina doing the music train:


Mondays are also Remodel Meeting Day. Today I met with my architect/interior designer to work on bathrooms. I know enough to keep tile under control, but maybe some colorful accents in the kids' bathroom that aren't too too kidlike...?

Will three kids have conflicts when they're older sharing a one-sink bathroom? I'd be a lot more nervous about that if they were all girls!

A notary errand with Dave, home, quick lunch, off to Gabriel's last piano class. Parents were invited this time for a "recital." Brace yourself for the most boring video ever recorded, but I had to do it for posterity.
Gabriel's first recital:


He can play many songs way better than that, but in this case, he's following instructions from the class to read the music, which he's doing.

A side story: Last week, I heard Gabriel playing a very familiar rift from the 1970s, and then realized he was playing "Super Freak" !! Apparently they'd had a Party Day at the CDC and played some old disco songs. Super Freak is very catchy, enough that he had to play it when he got home. Later, he wanted to know if I had Bad Girls and YMCA on CD!

His piano teacher, classically trained, also made sure the kids bowed before and after their performances.


The recital part of the class was over quickly, so she played some musical tic-tac-toe with the kids. Gabriel was very excited and animated, dancing around a lot. I started to get a good clip of this, until he ran toward me unexpectedly -- to hug me! Mom will always take that!! Gabriel is actually pretty affectionate, but he still surprised me, in the best way possible.
Run and hug:


One of the few things we've set up in the new house is the piano, by popular demand. As I was cleaning up Sunday dinner, I heard little-boy voices singing in unison. It was so cute, I quietly grabbed my camera. Gabriel and Julian were singing "Ten Little Indians" together to the piano (one of its pre-recorded tunes). They saw me but didn't mind, and started over so I could record. Other than that, I didn't stage this at all, they just did this on their own.
Gabriel and Julian singing together:

I can't explain why this is so heartwarming...I guess it's cooperation at its best.

I went to Zumba tonight at the Y, even though our new location adds about 5 minutes to the trip. I needed that, as I'm starting to feel oppressed by all the cardboard in our house. I was tired and hungry when I got home, but determined to do whatever bare minimum was necessary to get back on the air -- and I am! It's minimal, but at least I can upload photos and check email with Eudora instead of the ultra-lame Web interface my ISP offers. I've gotta fix that. Someday. When all the cardboard boxes are gone.

6/9/08

p.s. I hate getting behind in photos, but I mentioned yesterday Katrina's surf PJs that she loves, and I have a photo, so....

So cute...I want some too!

6/8/08 Hot handles

(hmm, maybe I should start a trend of finding the most insignificant thought of the day and using it as a subject for each blog post!).

I discovered today why my pans with so-called "stay-cool" metal handles can make that claim: because if it doesn't take so long to cook something, the handle never has time to get hot. I'm absolutely amazed at the difference in scrambling eggs or sauteeing ground beef. I can't even use the highest heat, in fact, it scorches any butter or oil I've put in the pan. Tonight when it came time to boil water for spaghetti, once again I'd forgotten to get it started ahead of time -- no matter, a stockpot full of water was at a furious boil in a matter of minutes. Think how much energy we'll save by being able to boil water when it's needed, instead of preparing it some vague variable time well before then.

And, I was able to actually simmer spaghetti sauce tonight. Truly simmer it! Not cover it so it doesn't boil over even with a simmer ring, as was the case with my old cooktop. I could even turn the burner up to 3 (out of 10) or so and it would calmly bubble far less than my old cooktop did on its lowest setting.

I'm not sold on the flat continuous surface of the electric cooktop though. Cleanup is unmatched, but I find the pans slide around more than I'd like when I'm stirring the contents. And it makes some pretty furious sounds if I set a pan down that isn't completely dry. The smooth surface is misleading too; Julian almost set a toy down on it, not recognizing it as a cooktop.

I love not having to hike around my old island.

I spent a lot of time at the house today ("the" house has come to mean our house, our real house), holding something of an informal open house for friends to check it out when it's empty. Kids love running around an empty house, and when Betsy arrived with her crew, we had six of them shouting their heads off in an echo-y for a while, it was great. After Gabriel arrived with Dave that is, and before Dave took a suddenly-grumpy Katrina home with him for a nap.

I got a lot done tying up things in the house, including packing up my computer and printer (still not set up, hence lack of photos), but not enough to prevent yet another trip back tonight to mark items to keep in the demolition. I used the ubiquitous blue painter's tape, a terrific tool for instant identification, but with a potentially devastating consequence. No one will read anything once they see the blue tape, especially not the guys who work for the demolition subcontractor hired by your contractor. A piece of blue tape in one place means the same thing in every other place, no matter WHAT you write on it. You can't use blue tape to leave notes -- its mere presence conveys meaning, regardless of what's written on it. In the past, I've even made sure not to use any blue tape to force the guy working to actually read a note, because any blue tape anywhere instantly turns off the analytic process.

I took the boys back to the shoe store today to return Katrina's sandals and pick up Julian's. Store credit for her sandals, so I figured I'd look for something to exchange them for as long as I'm there. I ended up with a $55 pair of Eccos for her, cute girl's sandals in light blue. >> $55 !! << I don't think I spent that much on sandals for the first three years of the boys' lives combined! I just don't have the energy for another shoe-shopping trip.

The good news is that she likes them and wore them happily today without a fuss. She's obsessed with shoes these days, which is often cute, but results in her brothers' shoes getting scattered all over the house, and tantrums when a shoe's rightful owner (often me) would like it reunited with their foot. Then she gets all mad when she can't take off her own shoes to put on someone else's, then demands to have her shoes put back on....on and on. So a fuss-free shoe application is a huge relief.

To my surprise, Katrina showed a preference for clothes tonight too, in the form of choosing pajamas. I got an inexpensive set of two pairs of shortie PJs at Target, but I couldn't stand the "I want to be a princess" lettering on the girls' version, so I got her a surf-theme set. One top has cars all over it, and the other has one car in the front, and she completely insisted on the one with the cars all over it. I called it exactly right, I knew she'd like the cars. On the other hand, I wasn't expecting her to care that much at all about PJs at 20 months old, so in that sense I didn't call it at all.

Lots of new territory, it seems.

6/8/08

6/7/08 Shoe color

I took all 3 to Howard's for summer sandals today. Unfortunately, Katrina was in a horrid state, no doubt due to poor sleep from last night's sleepover, and cried and fussed through the whole shopping expedition.

So I was in no position to browse or ponder decisions. This resulted in exactly what I wanted to avoid: bright pink sandals. She's suddenly rebelled against her Crocs, and needs sock-less summer shoes, so it was a matter of urgency. I could have gotten the boy navy blue color, but then thought that none of her clothes would look right. Hence, bright pink.

When we got home, it turned out that the new sandals are way too hard to put on without socks, so back they'll go. I dug around in our shoe stash and found two pairs of sandals that are exactly her size -- both navy blue! Hand-me-downs from her boy cousin, I believe. She likes -- well, barely tolerates -- a pair of Elefantens that her aunt got off eBay many years ago. So much for trying to match stuff.

The only way I was able to pay for the shoes was to ask Gabriel to push her around in the stroller in circles outside the store in the mall, a scene which attracted the attention of a security guard. Though he was ready to pin Worst Mall Mom Of The Week on me, I was actually very proud and relieved that I have Gabriel to count on. Gabriel took his "job" very seriously, and is very cooperative and helpful when I ask him to do something related to Katrina. His caring and effort were rewarded with a big anti-brother tantrum on the way out, angry that he was pushing the stroller instead of me. SHEEZ!

I'd had wild ideas about procrastinating unpacking by crashing a picnic after shoe-shopping, but Katrina was a complete mess on the way home. Straight to crib, here's Mimi, long nap, thank goodness. Just in time for Julian to take over -- he was awful today, getting into such huge fusses he couldn't reason or hear that he was going to get something. Gabriel, thankfully, was great today. He too was tired, but he curled up in his bed under the covers and took a nap! He is far, far and away our easiest child right now. I never thought I'd say that. (A few moms were giving me comfort and support at the shoe store when Katrina was freaking, which I greatly appreciated, but I told them the good news is that sweet, helpful little boy pushing her around in the stroller was worse, so I know this is temporary!)

Unpacking is a brutal, horrible task. And that's just the kitchen stuff! I still haven't found my prep knives or our drinking glasses. I really didn't do a good enough job setting aside things we need. Nightlights, for instance, and Katrina's sippy-cup. I spent all afternoon digging for my cooking oils, determined to bake brownies, and found them well past the time to start dinner.

I cooked dinner for the first time here at our "new" house, on my "new" electric range. Now I finally understand why cooking instructions say "remove from heat" instead of "turn off the heat" -- long after turning off a burner, things are still at a rolling boil! But what a rolling boil. I've never seen water boil so furiously in my old kitchen, nor so quickly. I knew I'd had a lame cooktop, but wow. This cooktop has some burners that are bigger than others, which I really don't like. I'm glad my new cooktop will have six burners with identical functions.

This house is bright and sunny all day, more than our home-house ever will be. I'm still getting used to the new kitchen, but I'm very happy not to have an island to hike around to get from the main prep area to the fridge. However, I discovered tonight that carrying a boiling pan of water all the way across the kitchen with a toddler clinging to your leg is tricky. Katrina picked that moment to play this game of grabbing my leg and looking up at me and saying in a joking voice, "Mama!" Unfortunately, Julian imitates that game too, and it doesn't wear well on a 4-year-old.

I'm typing from Dave's computer, so haven't had a chance to upload photos yet. There's not much to see. You'll have to take my word for it that Katrina is adorable, despite her increasingly insistent and intolerant demeanor. The boys are getting truly shaggy and need haircuts, but that's not as urgent as finding my tea kettle.

6/7/08

6/6/08 MOVED!

Whew -- we did it! Now we just have to dig out of piles and piles of boxes at our "new" home. Both Dave and I have trouble calling it home.

I'm writing from our "old" house, as we don't have phone or Internet at the new one yet. It's completely empty, echo-y, yet still so familiar. The walls and floors are filled with memories and familiar feelings. I look around and think, "this is where I brought my three children home after they were born." I can't imagine what it'll be like when we really move from here.

The move went really really well, thanks to a very organized moving company and an efficient crew. They gave us boxes ahead of time to pre-pack, lots of advice on packing, and suggested we move the bedrooms over the first day. This worked really well, and then some. The intent was to pack until early afternoon, including loading all the bedroom furntiture and boxes. Then they'd bring over the bedrooms, unload those, re-assemble beds, and unload bedroom boxes so that we'd have bedding and clothes.

In practice, the unload didn't start until much later, because they decided to push and load the ENTIRE house the first day. This made for a very hectic 2 hours -- was it only two hours?! -- in which ten guys were unloading things far faster than I could direct them. They'd called for more guys and trucks, so in the end, there were four trucks and crews there unloading. I was getting frantic because Dave was going to arrive with three tired hungry children in a few minutes and I was still directing streams of guys with boxes and all kinds of stuff.

(Not to mention, take a WILD guess here, a splitting, vicious, horrendous headache that would not go away. Zooming around helped me forget it for a moment at a time, but if I stopped to breathe, it would slam me in waves of excruciating pain. It wasn't a migraine yet, just a severe headache, but naturally developed into a migraine today.)

During the unload, one of the guys brought in a wall shelf in Katrina's room I'd marked "LEAVE HERE," and asked the foreman, "Where does this go? It's marked LEAVE HERE!" Next time, I'll make a bigger effort to find color-coded tape to mark things to leave behind!

They got everything except one truck unloaded, bedrooms set up, and went home at about 6:30. We went out to dinner, after a wild goose chase for an item I very foolishly didn't set aside and is now buried in an anonymous box somewhere: Katrina's sippy cup. This morning, the truck with the remainder of our things returned, and it was a very easy unload, plus a trip to our "old" house for a refrigerator. We were done by 10:30am.

Suggestion to anyone moving soon: mark all your outlets, phone jacks and cable outlets high on the wall in your new place BEFORE furniture blocks them all!

And now, the monumental task of digging out. We have way WAY too much stuff -- I was tempted to tell them to just turn the truck around and go straight to Good Will! Since then, I've looked around our garage, and I'm horrified. It would take days to dig out of there. Thank goodness we don't have to. I'm determined to come back to this house with less stuff than we left it with.

6/6/08

6/4/08 Cramming for the test

There comes a point while studying for a final exam after which you know your fate is sealed -- you're out of time, your brain has shut down, that's it. You're going in with what you have. Packing and moving is much the same way. We're set, even if we're not.

Deep breath, mountain pose, quick prayer, ommm...here we go! It's tomorrow!

6/4/08

6/3/08 Easter baskets

See, this is the problem with trying to pack to move. Easter baskets sum it up perfectly. Keep? Store? Pack? Throw away? They're not quite worth boxing up and moving. But it's a pain to buy new ones every year. And how do you store them so they don't take up a ton of space for something so light and cheap? Arrgh....just don't know what to do with easter baskets. They've become a metaphor for everything that stands between me and a perfectly boxed-up house. Mental gridlock.

I took a break from the dilemmas this evening to take my little patriot to do our civic duty.

She hogged all the "sih-ers," to the delight of the grandparently poll workers.

I'm forgetting what life is like when it's not about to be completely disrupted!

6/3/08

6/2/08 They grow so fast...

As much as I hate the long round-trip to pick up Katrina, I have truly come to relish that time if the boys are with me. Though I drive with them often, most of the trips are too short to get into conversations.

Today after Gabriel's piano lesson, more of such talks.

Gabriel often asks me about news stories he overhears on the radio. It's a lot of fast grownup talk, volume low, with car noise, and Gabriel's questionable hearing. Yet out of a lot of mumbo-jumbo I was barely listening to, he heard enough to ask:

"Mom, who's Barack Obama? And where's he running?"

I explained as best I could. Fortunately, Gabriel does know about voting: "Yeah, we voted for chocolate ice cream on the last field trip!" Now he wants to vote for Barack Obama.

Meantime, Julian wants to be a policeman when he grows up, but he doesn't want his police car to have a siren.

Our return trip was a much more familiar "conversation": NO FIGHTING IN THE CAR BOYS. ONE MORE TIME AND I WILL STOP THIS CAR AND YOU BOTH WILL GET IN HUGE TROUBLE. screeEEECH! brake fast, enage ABS -- that freaks them out.

Before that, the boys played on an odd bridge structure outside the community center (one with about a 6' dropoff into what looks like a dry fountain; what is that doing there?).




Later, in rebellion to alllll the things we have to do around here, I made cookies with Julian. I couldn't really pack anyway; I was burnt and Katrina was a short-timer by then, so I spent some quality time keeping my younger son out of my older son's hair (though daughter picked up the slack and bugged him anyway). Julian measured, poured, stirred and practiced his excellent egg-cracking skills (no shells, didn't even break the yolk!), and was full of loving comments, relishing the moment alone with me <guilt>.

Fresh home-baked cookies became an incentive for a quick bath and PJs -- no putzing around when the stakes are this high!


Katrina had a great time today playing in music class, provided I did the exact right thing, which today was not to interfere. I get remarks from other grownups in almost every class about how independent and free-spirited she is (tantrum moments aside). Most kids roam around on and off too, but she's rarely in my lap past the first few minutes.

We did one song "Dancing with Teddy" with teddies, borrowed from the teacher's daughter, and this was a big hit.


She followed another little girl's lead (who's just a few weeks older) in sitting on the teddy and bouncing on it. Their interaction is pretty cute (well, to me):


We got a visit from the city's Public Works department today, probably in response to an email Dave sent this morning expressing waning confidence in the process (such as mentioning a water meter upgrade when we already did that in 2004). The guy was not expecting to talk to us, but happened upon a rare moment that we were both home and I saw him and flagged Dave.

His lame explanation of the mysterious fees, and other statements that sounded like bad excuses for not doing his homework has made us decide to request a complete itemization of the nearly $10,000 in permit fees. He had an ancient record with him that says our house is a 2BR/1BA/single-story (it was, 30 years ago), and was prepared to "nail" us for having a much larger house than that. There is far, far too much hand-waving going on with our money here.

I'm working on a quickie Web site devoted to the whole remodeling project, using Google Page Creator. It's got serious limitations, but it'll have to do! I wish it had password-protection; I want to keep it detailed for our own reference, but dissing city officials isn't in our best interests right now.


This photo is the most heartwarming and comforting scene of the day. This is what you want to see when you're about to tear your house apart: your architect and your contractor talking together. Every conversation is another prevented problem.

6/2/08

6/1/2008 Pack pressure

Argh! The more I get done, the more I'm behind!

I'm actually trying not to pack too much; instead I'm focusing on organizing and sorting things that the professional packers can pack easily. I want to tell them "pack everything in this room, label it for XYZ room in the new house, and put it on the truck," instead of, "pack the top shelf and the three at the bottom, except this box which I'll need out, label most of them for XYZ room except for the things on the floor and the 2nd shelf which go to ABC room."

Katrina peed in the little potty again tonight -- 3rd time this week! Now whenever I take her diaper off, she looks down and goes "beeee!" I wish we weren't so preoccupied; her #2s are fairly predictable too and we could really run with potty-training. She's been talking a lot more lately, and recognizing more abstract images. Today she pointed to a circular object in a photo and said, "Buh-bool!" (bubble), and now recognizes that two-wheeled vehicles are "BYYYE??" and cars are "DDOHHH??"

On the potty subject, for the past week we haven't been waking Julian up to pee, and he's been dry every morning, yay! Even if he has an accident, I'd still say he's done. Gabriel sometimes says he wants to go without Pull-Ups, but he's hardly sincere and resists the alarm idea. No energy for that right now.

6/1/08

5/31/08 The Picnic

I brought the kids to the rental house today with a carload of things, including more basics to be able to spend some time there. Nothing like making an emergency sandwich to quickly discover what's needed -- dish soap, anyone?

It was almost noon when we arrived, and I thought Katrina was OK with a yogurt she'd had an hour earlier, but she started to act really grumpy. I made a half-sandwich, proud of myself for having everything except cleanup stuff, except...whoops! Where's she going to sit?

Picnic time! I sat her down in the only uncarpeted area in the house, and to my amazement, she actually sat there and ate the entire sandwich sitting on the floor.


She was very ready for a nap when we got home, and even sang out, "nahh-ime!" (naptime!) as I carried her upstairs. Lay her down, give her Mimi, and that's it.

I marvelled again at how in so many ways, she is a remarkably easy toddler. She's really adaptable -- eager, even -- to new situations, and it doesn't get any easier when it comes to going to sleep. It's not hard for me to get a lot done at the new house with her bopping around, she doesn't demand my attention at all, and is very happy to explore and play in her new domain. Brothers are an added bonus, but even without them, she'd play on her own quite happily. And it's much more fun for me to be there with the kids.

Yet I'd never say she has an easy personality; she's very very opinionated and vocal and inflexible about things she wants. But a toddler who is so cooperative about an unusual lunch situation, who naps so readily, plays happily while I zoom around sounds very easygoing!

I made some progress packing today, trying to focus on things that I don't want the movers to pack themselves. Top priority: my scrapbooking stuff! I took a picture of my craft area so I'd remember where I put things.

Most of that is in boxes now.

I tackled a job I really dreaded, which was going through our utility closet and packing or getting rid of things that have been stashed there for years. I hate it, but at some point in life, one must finally be forced to deal with things shoved deep into corners because you just didn't know what else to do with them. It's time to face the light fixtures the previous owners left behind, a box of doorstops, and old rolls of contact paper.

Dave and I looked more carefully at the comments from the city about our plans. There's a whole page from Public Works about "off-site improvements," including a crossed-out reference to an accessory building, but they didn't cross out the fee for over $1100. Then there's an encroachment permit fee of $250, and yet another "developmental impact fee," yet to be calculated. And we have absolutely no idea what this is about -- we aren't making any "off-site" improvements.

Most of the city's comments I can sort-of forgive; this is what the building department is for. But 6 weeks of previous delay for a "planning review" and neighbor-comments period, during which time nothing progressed, makes me a whole lot less forgiving about stuff they come up with now. These comments should have started coming in April, not now. They had so much time, there's no excuse for this hasty sloppy work, such as a huge new fee whose only explanation is hand-crossed-out.

In theory, I shouldn't worry about that now, and should focus on moving. But I'd feel a whole lot better about moving if we had that building permit in hand. The ball is rolling!

5/31/08

5/30/08 Stats

Katrina had her 18-month-old appointment today, once again, at 19 months old.

Weight: 24 lbs 9 oz (45%ile)
Height: 32-1/4" (55%ile)

Otherwise unremarkable...healthy, developing normally -- no news is good news!

I asked Gabriel this afternoon how his ears were today. His answer: "WHAAAT?"

Dave and our architect went to the city this afternoon just before the building department closed to get the comments on our plans. Thank goodness, they were ready. 3 departments have comments, again some that could easily have been given to us in previous interations. Many of the comments involve a lot of work to create (a full electrical plan for our master bedroom, for instance). Hard to say how long it'll take to update the plans.

And, they want a five new full sets of full-scale drawings -- even for the departments that have signed off, or have only a comment or two on a single page. Nope, ALL 25 pages, which are HUGE, at $50 a pop. Our architect asked if we could have the plans we already gave them back, and print only the pages that change, but nope, it's five full new sets of plans. Green, anyone?

We're drained, yet the struggle has only just started. And now, we have to turn our attention toward moving.

5/30/08

5/29/08 BP up!

Today I drove by a sad sight: a cast-aside, neglected, forgotten sign, tossed on its side in a corner with dumpsters and stacked tires....past its useful life, obsolete. It was a gas station's price sign, with hooks to hang the cents of the gas prices, but the huge "3" for dollars was permanently printed on the sign....

I took Gabriel to the pediatrician this morning....slight ear infection in his left ear, not nearly enough to explain his sudden episodes of intense pain and crying. Gabriel really doesn't cry often anymore, so to see him wailing in pain is heartbreaking. (Julian wailing, on the other hand, does little more than make me roll my eyes!) I wasn't going to give him the antibiotic unless his ear pain got worse, and it did this afternoon. He had a very slight temperature again tonight (99.5) but I'm hoping the meds will make him comfortable enough to go to school tomorrow. He has to turn in his LAST homework of the year!

It's just as well I missed work today, because I got a lot done. How would I ever get all this taken care of if I were working? Two phone calls with USAA, two to the movers, two calls to an "abatement company" about asbestos removal (very irritating, a trace amount in sheetrock in one bathroom), a call and an email to the city building department, two calls to family daycares -- and that's between the pediatrician and a window-salesman meeting at 2pm. Whew!

The window meeting was with the architect and the window guy, and I'm SO glad we did this. Lots of tech talk about windows that I can't begin to follow. Lots and lots of big problems ("no, we only need ONE of those $800 windows"), medium problems ("whoops, that garden window has to be tempered glass"), and minor problems ("white hardware in the bathroom windows only") prevented.

The hardest problem, the living room window, turned into a pussycat. A beautiful one our architect designed:


Gabriel spent this meeting-time at Melissa's, which for once was in a convenient location -- about 5 minutes from the window place.

I caught this photo of Katrina with her hand on Gabriel's shoulder. She'd been standing looking over his shoulder at a video game he was playing, and they looked so familiar and comfortable together. Her continued touch as she moved away appeared inocuous, but was actually very intimate. Of course, she might just have been balancing on him -- she is pretty clumsy.

When I arrived, she was wearing someone else's shoes and talking on a toy phone. So much for the tomboy angle.

Katrina didn't take a nap today (very unusual for her), and Gabriel was out of sorts...this was the scene in the car as we pulled into the parking lot at Julian's daycare after a 20-minute drive.


When I got home, in my email was waiting another bombshell. Our architect did get a hold of the building manager at the city to ask again about "comments" on our plans. And they're major. Not only major, but some of them were things they could easily have told us weeks ago, if they'd bothered to actually look at our plans. Both the architect and our contractor agree that what they're requesting is far beyond the scope of usual comments. And 3 out of 5 departments still haven't even looked at our plans yet -- including Structural Engineering, and that's not a quick look-see sort of review. I'm fit to be tied!

The really irritating thing is that the comments are DUE tomorrow, but the guy told our architect that she could pick them up Monday morning. Think the city would accept our, say, taxes "due" on a Friday on a Monday? Suuure. So, we're going to the city first thing in the morning to tell them we are picking up the comments tomorrow at close-of-business, as due. Let them cram for the test.

This time, I'm NOT putzing the letter of complaint to the city, despite how topsy-turvy our lives will be -- but AFTER we get the permits!

Moving day set for June 5, packing boxes delivered tonight -- we're ON!

5/29/08

5/28/08 Going Postal

I can see the headline now: "Crazed woman strangles city planning commissioner -- cites permit delays."

The city isn't going to give us our permits Friday!!!!!

And you know why? NO! You know why you don't know?? 'Cause they won't tell us until Friday why they can't give us the permits on Friday! They can only tell us today that there are "comments" -- translation: no permits.

Dave got lucky that he caught the planning person managing our project, in fact, or we'd have known none of this. Five departments have to review our plans. Two have signed off, one has redlined with comments -- automatically costing us at least another two weeks -- and two more departments haven't even looked at them yet!!

And the comments from all departments are "due" Friday, but they don't say when on Friday. Our architect tried to pin the guy down too, but he just says "Friday." More pushing, the most he'd commit to was "afternoon."

These people are messing with my life!! This is my house, not a junior high school book report -- what's this cr*p about not even looking at the plans until almost the last day?! And more cr*p about any random time during the due date that they'll be ready?

They've had the plans since April 8, at which point it took them 3 weeks to decide that our neighbors deserved yet another 3 weeks to look at them, after which it's another 3 weeks before they come back and tell us that they have comments, starting off yet another 3 week wait.

It's infuriating. They're taking months to take over $8000 in permit fees from us. $8000!! I tend to expect a little service!

Thank goodness for kids. Nothing is a stronger reminder of "life goes on." A fun afternoon of markers brings me down to earth, though I wasn't the one having the fun.



Katrina was arranging and counting the markers are much as she was drawing with them. You regular readers can already anticipate the scene when I had to pry her away. She seriously disapproved of this change of state, though she recovered once the car got moving, thank goodness.

The key to broccoli: a fork! Katrina thinks it's great fun to try to stab broccoli florets, though sometimes she picks them up and sticks them on the fork. Fine with me -- a whole bowl of broccoli consumed this way. Yay green vegetables and vitamin C!

I feel such intense pressure to get things ready to move, things ready to remodel (productive meeting with the window salesman today, and another tomorrow with him again, this time with architect), to produce at work, and to take care of my Dad's affairs....and yet kids again remind me that life goes on. Despite mounting deadlines, tomorrow I'm missing work to take Gabriel to the pediatrician. His left ear has been bothering him on and off for days, and tonight he had a low-grade fever again. Probably fighting an ear infection again, as he has no other symptoms -- only "WHA-AAT?"

A day alone with my son...not so bad. Life goes on.

5/28/08

5/27/08

Talked to a moving company today. I can't believe how much work we have ahead of us. And since I've been missing so much work, I'm going to work tonight.

On the way to pick up Katrina, Julian asked me to play music "that's in the car already," meaning, CDs rather than the radio. He wanted to identify different instruments in songs: "Trumpet!" "Drums!" "Piano!" I didn't have the heart to tell him that Alan Parsons Project is highly synthesized and I wasn't sure if any of the instruments were real. Still, his enthusiasm was fun.

I can already see this fascination with playing games on the Lego Web site eroding Julian's ability to entertain himself. Lately it's become a real struggle to pry him away, and he whines and complains that he wants to play on the computer. He's been a real pain lately anyway -- cause or effect?

One school of thought would be that he needs his own computer and place to play games, but somehow I dig in and feel the exact opposite -- the game-playing should remain in a privileged place, on computers that aren't theirs and they have to ask permission to use, and we can maintain tight control over (though we haven't). I know their own computers are inevitable, but at this stage of their lives, I see free access to computers -- or even increased access beyond what they have now -- only interfering with their learning.

I succeeded in "closing the office," and now Julian and Gabriel are making up games together with Lego cars, instead of playing electronic games with Lego cars. Splitting hairs? Not at all. Even if they model their games after the Web games, their interactive play is completely different than having the computer do it all for you. I'm not opposed to computer games in moderation, but "moderation" is not in the Top Ten of kid skills! At least not mine.

"Games people play, you take it or you leave it..."

5/27/08

5/25/08 The Flip side to tantrumers

Hoo boy, did we pay dearly today for the sleepover -- but only with Julian. He was a real pain this evening, threw a huge fit before dinner, then fell asleep on the bathroom floor during dinner. When he woke up, it was one complaint and whine and fake-crying after another. Dave commented that it seems we got a drama queen after all, and it's our son!

For as difficult as Gabriel can be, whining and drama isn't among his foibles. Katrina is following in Gabriel's footsteps in terms of temperament, with the notable exception that she will cry if she's scolded, though it's an angry cry, not a hurt cry, and is often followed up by an act of aggression.

Could it be that tough-cookie tantruming personality traits disincline a kid toward whining? Of course I don't mean that they're mutually exclusive; Julian can throw a tantrum and Gabriel from time to time can complain, but at least in this household, there's a definite pattern that the stronger personalities are less likely to whine -- and the softer personality is less likely to wage all-out war.

Dave noticed today that Katrina now really is counting -- not just reciting numbers as she has been for months, but actually moving objects one at a time as she counts them. That and her relentless fascination with all things wheeled made him add that she really is like a female toned-down version of Gabriel (with the huge exceptions of crying when scolded, and no language delay). Dave isn't into personality analysis, so this made a strong impression!

I'm wondering how audible our day-to-day antics will be to our new neighbors. It's really interesting exploring another house -- it's layout changes a lot of things in our lives. We're not on a corner now, so we have neighbors on either side, and close. But the backyard butts up against another backyard -- no more neighbors waving at us through her kitchen window while we're having dinner.

I took the boys to the "new" house this afternoon to figure out where furniture would go and what room would do what. This house is smaller than ours, but is far and away the largest rental we saw, and has a huge benefit: an attached garage! That's a luxury I could quickly get used to. Also, there is a living room, dining room and family room, plus the 4 bedrooms, to help us spread out. The 3 bedrooms aren't huge, but we really can't complain.

Still, there will be some challenges. Everything is so cheap in the new house -- the kitchen faucet is awful (and I'm very in-tune with faucets these days!), the doors and walls are thin, the windows drafty and ugly. And none of the outlets are grounded -- this will be a big challenge plugging in all our computer and office equipment! Tomorrow a moving company is scoping out the job, and they're skeptical that we can fit a 2600 sq.ft. house into an 1800 sq.ft one.

I came up with a stroke of genius -- rare for me these days -- in how to figure out what to move where. I wrote down each piece of furniture and its width on a separate sticky note, at home. Then at the "new" house, I walked around the rooms and put a sticky note the wall where I thought each item could go. This was really helpful! Now I have a decent idea of how our house will be arranged, what items will have to be left behind (my craft area, sob!); others will go into different rooms. If I were REALLY organized, I'd take a photo of each piece of furniture, print it, cut it out, and tape it to the wall for the movers, but that's a lot of work. I don't feel like it.

Gabriel couldn't understand why all three of them couldn't share a room. Not because thinks it's unfair Katrina gets her own room (that comes later), but because he wants to take care of her at night. Awww!

The boys had a great time measuring stuff, with Gabriel actually measuring walls and helping me decide if a bookshelf or something would fit there. I had him measure the !TWO!Walk-in!Closets!! in the master bedroom and taught him the Very Important Rule that MOM gets the biggest closet.


I brought a carload of stuff over, mostly to make spending a few hours there easier -- toilet paper, snacks, pantry items, pen and paper, baby-changing stuff. I was just about done putting the sticky notes on the wall when Dave and Katrina arrived. The boys had been pretty cool up to that point, but Katrina's energy and excitement revved them up -- she was thrilled to be back at her playplace. It was hard to get much done after that, but I glowed in enjoyment and pride at watching my joyful children playing together.

Then, another major change in our lives: Trader Joe's! My favorite TJ's will now be inconvenient, but a lesser one will be downright easy to get to, as I learned when I took Katrina there after leaving the "new" house. A different TJs...wow.

Praise be...Julian finally stopped wailing. He may not tantrum the way his siblings do, but he can still make life miserable for a long long long time.

5/25/08

5/25/08 Sleepover

In theory, kids sleepover at Tonya's, big headway on deciding what goes where in the "new" house.

In practice, a nice Central Coast zinfandel, a foofy salad, grilled fish, coconut creme brulee at a cozy Italian restaurant.

And now, bedtime at the "old" house.

5/25/08

5/24/08 The faucet

What a day...really, what a night. I had a meeting with the kitchen designer today, so spent some time last night getting ready for it. Unfortunately, a headache that I thought had been kept at bay greatly intensified, keeping me up late, and made worse by an early-morning attempt at drugs (codeine) which pretty much fended off any remaining chance I had at real sleep.

So I was a wasted mess today...but well-prepared for the meeting. Somehow, inspiration from the only 10 minutes I've seen all year of Divine Design on HGTV pulled together the entertainment area together quickly, and we're all thrilled with it. Now the only major decisions left are the kitchen sink and faucet.

Dave took the three to Stanford this morning for a follow-up session for the language study we volunteered Katrina for, then brought them to Melissa's and joined me at the kitchen design place. Dave doesn't care all that much about every detail, but he's much more decisive and clear-thinking than I am, so a cabinet style for the entertainment area was finalized easily.

Dave and I went to lunch, and then walked to the nearby window and fireplace store. On the way, we walked by a plumbing supply place, which happened to have a faucet on display I'd wanted to see in real life. It's perfect. And I don't say that lightly. The handspray thing feels great, and the button to turn the spray mode on and off works fabulously. (Dave prefers a single-handle faucet, and since I want him to use the faucet, a lot, then single-handle it is!)

As I basked in the glow of a major decision made, I marvelled again at a mom friend who is so relaxed about her kitchen faucet that she told her husband to just pick whatever. Such decisiveness and flexibility is as utterly foreign a world to me as is, oh, say, optometry. And what would I do with all that extra time?

Back at home with the bunch, the boys went straight to play games on www.lego.com (this is starting to become a problem), and Katrina went straight outside to play on the tricycle. She can reach the ground well enough to push it around with one foot, saying "whee!" when she pushes it in a circle.


Katrina says "whee" on the tricycle
She played like this on the tricycle for at least 40 minutes, and on and off many other times throughout the afternoon, getting off only long enough to try out another tricycle. She probably could pedal one now if she'd let anyone show her how, but she loudly rejects any offers of help.

Katrina wasn't too keen on dinner tonight, but I did get her to eat some vanilla soy yogurt, a favorite. I took this video so you all could marvel at my bravery, allowing a 19-month-old to eat something on her own that is so drippy and with such huge potential for splashing. And usually without a bib; this was a rare occasion that she permitted one.

Katrina and drippy soy yogurt

Truth is, I have no choice. Katrina will sometimes accept bites of food if I'm holding her and impulsively offer her a spoon, but sitting and spoon-feeding her is a thing of the past. The mere offer can be a serious offense punishable by throwing, screaming, kicking and potentially, a meal-ruining tantrum. So now, even the goopiest, messiest food, she eats on her own, whether I like it or not. I do.

Last night as I tossed and turned with visions of kitchen sinks bashing my head, a moment of lucidity prompted the question: "what will keep me awake at night when all my remodeling decisions are made?"

5/24/08

5/23/08 Decisions, decisions

This is torture. For someone as indecisive as I am, especially about "design," designing an entire home is staggering. For many people, it'd be fun, and it is fun, but I'm so out of my element. It's no big deal if I make a bad decision in a scrapbook page, but in a house?

So I had my first meeting with an interior designer today. Fortunately, my designer is also my most talented architect! There are a lot of advantages to this. The interior designer says, "Let's put a seating area in the bay of this bay window," and the architect says, "OK, so place the window 24" above floor level." The interior designer says, "Let's put the chunky trim above the living-room window," and the architect says, "OK, we'll have to lower the window a little." It's a lot easier when these two are the same person.

Note that an interior designer isn't an interior decorator. We're not picking fabrics or armchair styles. The distinction is whether or not the item is attached to the house. If it is -- like a doorknob, baseboard trim, built-in shelf, fireplace tile etc -- then it's interior design. If it's not attached -- furniture, curtains, rugs -- then it's interior decorating, though obviously there are crossover items.

So, 3 hours later, I know what material, style and stain color the living room trim will be, I have two schemes for the hall and new guest suite (painted or wood?), and I'm ready to order all the windows and exterior doors. And we're only one-fourth done with the entire interior design -- it'll take at least another 3 hours to figure out the 3 bathrooms! But this is all worth it -- our upstairs remodel seriously suffered from not asking these questions ahead of time and having to make decisions on the spot, often badly, and resulting in expensive changes later.

Gabriel has joined a "knitting club" at the CDC. He's in good company, as his grandmother, aunt and yes, even mother, all knit. He likes to finger-knit scarves for his Bear. I took a short video of it -- right as Julian juuuust missed making it to the potty, something he never ever does anymore (hence the goofy audio in the background!):

Gabriel knitting


We took the kids to Spoons for dinner tonight, with the intent of visiting the "new house" afterward since it's so close -- we got the keys today! So we went over to scope it out.

The kids all thought this was fabulous fun, especially Katrina.


My "new" kitchen. Ugly, but, notice those yellow streaks in there? SUNSHINE!


The funky authentic wood fireplace, as viewed from the kitchen.


One of the ultra-plain bedrooms. All three non-master bedrooms are 9'x11' and are right next to each other. This house is a time capsule to the late 1960s -- no architectural wonder by any means, and finished cheaply.


It's not bad for space (1800 sq.ft. and a sizeable, if oddly-shaped, yard) and it's nice and bright. The grassy part of the yard isn't visible from the kitchen; instead a huge useless unshaded concrete patio is. That nasty antenna mast attached to the house is more than a vestigial eyesore, it's also a magnet for toddlers with rocks to bang on noisily.

Katrina insisted on going allllll the way around the house to the far side, where she could play with rocks. My architect has a daughter just 2 months older, and was telling me today about something I know nothing about: clingy. Sigh. That could be useful sometimes. ("Mom out of sight? Who cares?!") Fortunately, brothers were on the job.

Now on top of deciding what goes into our remodeled house, we have to decide where to put stuff in the "new" house. And I'm meeting with our kitchen designer tomorrow to decide how to set up the entertainment area. More decisions! This is too much!

5/23/08

5/22/08 Tough Questions

In the last few weeks, I've gotten the big doozies:

"Where do babies come from?"

"What's war?"

"Who's God?"

Actually, in some ways the hardest one to answer is the one about war, because it's hard to make light of it. And hard to put them off, because it involves so many cool vehicles and things that blow up and -- yes -- death.

All of thequestions come from Julian, though it didn't take much to hook Gabriel on the war talk.

Today was God. Julian heard something on the radio as we were driving (I almost always listen to NPR) and asked, "Is God where good food comes from?" I said something like that Mother Nature makes food, and that God looked over nature. "Who is God?" he asked. "He's someone many people believe in," I answered, hoping not to be asked the obvious follow-up question. "Where is God?" "He's all around, all over, in the sky, in the trees, everywhere." "Is God here, right now?"

This actually was easier than talking about what bullets and bombs do, as I did last week. Fortunately, I found a way to describe what bombs do without it sounding too bad: blow up train tracks so that trains can't bring more bullets to the bad guys. (Gabriel wanted to know the train connection). Whew.

Super productive meeting with the kitchen designer and contractor together this morning. I couldn't follow most of it, but hearing them ask each other questions and figure out when, where and how to install and order things (dishwasher air gaps, hood liners, toe kicks, outlets etc), I could see one future problem after another getting solved -- prevented -- right before my eyes. A far, far cry from the upstairs remodel: the cabinetmaker telling me to order the cabinet after he'd measured the finished area; the carpenters telling me they'd sheetrock after the cabinets had arrived; me feeling left like I was the first person ever to try to get the people who build the walls and the people who put stuff in the walls to work at the same time.

This project is really going to go well. But I'm the weak link. I absolutely must have every faucet, bathtub, tile, doorknob, window, banister, paint color picked as soon as possible. Everything and the kitchen sink!

5/22/08

5/21/08 Slammed

Unbelievable. I was torn out of a sound sleep this morning by intense headache pain, which only increased as I got myself and everyone else ready. I couldn't stop yawning and feeling like I'd fall asleep with every blink as I dropped the boys and then Katrina off, so went straight back home to take an essential nap before work. But at work, the first person who saw me made a quizzical face and asked what was wrong, I guess because I was squinting or making a face or something.

I'm beside myself. I just went through weeks of this! I've had migraines since adolescence, but never so frequent, long-lasting or severe as since Katrina was born.

I asked Dave to take the boys to dinner tonight so that I didn't have to deal with dinner and could have a nice evening alone with Katrina. But the first 45 minutes were seriously ugly. She got into a major tantrum the instant we got home, and her nonstop crying felt like it was going to send me into seizures. After trying the usual everything, I put on my iPod to try to drown out her crying, which finally worked indirectly, as she got interested in the iPod screen, enough to calm down to take a bite of rice. And then another, and another....but it took over 15 minutes of carrying her and feeding her (something she rarely allows anymore) slowly and carefully for a good mood to take hold.

Then she played outside, ringing the bicycle bell on Gabriel's "cy," and now she's happily chatting at TuxPaint, a Mac drawing program for kids, though she doesn't quite get the idea that she can "paint" with the mouse.

OK, phew, she's in good shape now. But what about me? Maybe migraine nights aren't the right time to send the boys away. I could use a soothing Julian kiss about now.

5/21/08

5/20/08 The D.J.

Our electronic piano serves as a sort of primitive, if gigantic, iPod of sorts. Julian likes to sing aloud to songs it plays. Until he's discovered, that is.


Then he unplugged the headphones and "played" some songs so that Katrina could "dance." This is a game they'd developed that I didn't know about.

This is grandparent-quality video, but does give a decent idea of her delightful, fun, silly, outgoing side. Which, for all my complaining, is how she is most of the time. It's just that it can turn ugly in a matter of seconds if someone, especially me, offends her.

I found a few family daycares today close to our "new" house....yeah, 3 pickups again, but I'd still rather have Katrina in family daycare if I can find one. Tonya and Melissa aren't just daycare providers, they're part of the family; they've helped me raise my kids. Though they both live too far now, I'm not sure I can cut my own cord yet!

As if I have time to make more phone calls. This week I'm meeting with our kitchen designer and contractor together, then the architect, then the kitchen designer again. And tomorrow we call moving companies, targeting Friday June 6 to move to the "new" house! GULP! I think that means we'll hold the "before" open house on Sunday June 8th, in the late morning. It's entirely possible the first demolition crews will arrive Monday the 9th.

5/20/08

5/19/08 Mom schoolwork

Skimming through the mounds of schoolwork Gabriel brings home every week, I ran across this paper, which has pre-printed prompting words and then he's supposed to complete the sentence.

It says:


Name: Gabriel

I love my mom for many reasons.

My mom cooks for me.

She also makes train tracks with me.

My mom loves me.

* write something else about your mom.

I love my mom a lot.

I didn't think much of this until I caught the last line, in which he'd underlined "a lot." Nice to know I'm doing something right!

5/19/08 The Meeting

Sort of a corporate meeting term, the "project kickoff" meeting.

That's what Dave and I had today with our contractor this afternoon, to talk about the big items to get started on our remodel. Permits, of course, are the biggest "gating item," but we talked about ways to "parallel process," so as to be ready to hit the ground running when permits come in. Demolition can start when temporary power is set up, and that should be around the second week of June, assuming we get our permits May 30. So our "action item" is to be out by June 7, our "drop-dead" date.

But first, music class. Katrina was in good form for the most part, though I nearly started a few tantrums by attempting to derail her shoe obsession, trying to get her to join the class. Don't I know better by now?


This new 17-month-old classmate capivates me, I'm not sure I've ever see a more stunningly beautiful toddler. Meaning no disrespect, she reminds me of Suri Cruise.


After music class, I went to my old longtime gym that I haven't been to in ages, to take my favorite Power Weights class. I ran into some old friends there and caught up briefly, including a friend with a boy kindergartner. She'd moved to Los Gatos partly for the better schools, but still isn't happy with them and wants to put her son in private school. He has a late birthday in 2001, so she held him back a year and says that it was the right choice, since he's doing so well academically. She said proudly that he reads at the level of a 7 or 8 year old, and that they do a lot of enrichment work with him after school.

About all I had to say about my kindergartner was, "uhh, yeah, well, he gets in trouble a lot." I just had absolutely nothing to relate to. I'm fine with public school, I'm not any more concerned about his academic development than any other aspects, I have no idea what age level he reads at, and I don't do enrichment work. Totally lame or totally relaxed? ....Don't answer that.

I went home and took a nap. There was no mistaking it by now....what started as a mild headache this morning had escalated. That explains why I found myself in a left-turn-only lane one street too soon this morning on the way to music class, not completely sure why it all looked so different. Why I couldn't quite yawning all morning. And, a new thing, why I was so cold after my nap, and have been so cold at work during this heat wave. D*MN IT! I got a glorious 6-day break after a nasty 15-day spell of migraine -- not again, not already! Fortunately it's OK tonight; I'm hoping this was a rare hours-long migraine that won't develop in another weeks-long one.

We're in the mad scramble to clean up tonight for house cleaners coming tomorrow -- it almost seems silly for them to do too good a job when most of what they will so diligently scrub will soon be carted out of here in pieces!

5/19/08

5/18/08 Up downtime

Arrrgh. Did I say the boys needed downtime at home, without anything scheduled? They were horrible today! Resistant, obnoxious, constantly saying annoying things, making lots of obnoxious sounds, pillow fights, hitting each other, kicking each other....just being kids, right? Yeah. Annoying kids. Maybe even bored kids.

Sunday nights, the boys are offered two TV shows, but they have to clean up the family room before dinner to earn the second show. Tonight they didn't want to do that, and I was very clear with them: only ONE show then. So what do you think happens after the one show is over? A total Julian meltdown because he wants two shows, despite the careful warning.

Finally they settled down to play outside after their TV show.

They sure got their share of each other this weekend, playing together almost nonstop. It's actually quite heartwarming to listen to them talk together, though Gabriel is usually pretty dominant. Tonight I heard him say, as he was explaining something about their truck-and-rope arrangement, "OK. Now, so, I'm very smart, but of course (rolling his eyes), everyone knows that." Good grief! I butted in and said, "No, you're just very conceited!"

Katrina had a rare day of being the favorite around here, being generally funny and adorable and making cute sounds and...dare I say it, sweet? Well, not quite, but lots of fun anyway.

Dave took her to Stanford yesterday to be a subject in a language study, and the researchers asked him if she was putting two words together yet. Dave said he didn't think so (he hasn't heard her say "My (anything)"). Tonight she was picking at dinner (she's been eating horribly), and he held up a piece of bread and said, "bite?" She glared at him and practically roared, "NOOO BIYE!" OK, well, I guess she showed him -- on two counts!

The pressure to prepare for remodeling and moving is constant and unrelenting. Some progress today, never enough -- I guess slow-n-steady will be the key.

5/18/08