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I’m starting this post at 11 p.m., and little Miss Cate is still wiiiiide awake. I know I’ve said it before, but this midnight bedtime thing is driving us crazy. It could be worse, of course - she’s running around happy and playing, and it would be a lot worse if she was having meltdowns every night. But instead it’s just kaboing-kaboing-kaboing, happy happy, play play play, run run run… and we’re like, dude, chill the heck out and go to SLEEP already.

We went over to Cat & Tony’s for burgers (mmm, burgers) on Friday night, and they came over for dinner tonight. I don’t know when the novelty is going to wear off, but I get such a kick out of watching Cate and e-baby interact with each other. It’s so funny to watch what they pick up on. Cate’s learned a couple of new words/signs just in the past few days (all animals: frog, goat, rabbit), and I think the signing might be partially attributable to being around another kid who signs. (Maybe also because Cate’s currently obsessed with the “Leah’s Farm” Signing Time DVD and asks for it over and over. The songs on the DVD are now stuck in my head round-the-clock, and they’re cute little tunes and all, but OMG, ENOUGH already.)

Anyway, it’s funny to watch the two girls play with (or next to) each other. They even gave each other a kiss as e-baby was leaving tonight. It was more like they bumped their faces into each other, but still, SO cute.

Ok. 12:30 a.m. Cate finally went to sleep about 5 minutes ago. Lord Jesus help me.

P.S. Forgive the subject line. I can’t stand Eric Clapton, but I’m exhausted and it’s all I could think of.

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Today, we had several people come over to help us unpack: Cat, Tony, e-baby (ok, she was mostly there to play with her cousin Cate) and their friends Dan and Jess. We got SO MUCH done, it’s amazing. It’s starting to feel like “a proper house,” as Dave says, rather than just a mess of boxes. Granted, it’s still a very messy house, but it’s starting to feel more and more manageable.

The living room is basically done, we just need to put books on the shelves and hang some pictures. And the kitchen was an unbelievably big job that’s now probably 90% done. (It would be more, but the shelves are broken in the cabinet where I want to put my pots and pans. The landlord will be repairing that soon.) Cate’s room is finished too, except for putting away all of the clothes from her suitcase that I took on our trip.

That leaves us with the dining room, my office, Dave’s office, and our bedroom. Oh, and the garage, where the movers dumped a whole mess o’ crap that really has no business being in the garage. It’s a lot, but not quite as overwhelming as when I first walked in the door on Thursday afternoon.

The downside of doing so much is that I am now in unbelievable pain. My shoulders ache from carrying so much, and my calves are killing me from running up and down the stairs a thousand times. It sucks, but I’ll live.

And you know, Cat and Tony are family, so it kind of makes sense that they’d come over to help, since I’d totally do the same thing for them. But we’d only met Dan and Jess once before, so the fact that they volunteered to help us out just amazes me. They both seem like really great, fun people, and I look forward to getting to spend more time with them.

P.S. One thing I need to vent about: we had our cable installed yesterday, and Dave and I went through it last night to set up all of our DVR timers. That’s when I found out that Time Warner in Raleigh doesn’t carry Bravo. That means no more Project Runway for me. I am pissed, y’all. I’ll be calling them first thing Monday morning to complain. I’ll be ok next season after they move the show to Lifetime, but I wanted to see how this season turned out. My mom has promised to record the shows for me and burn them to DVD, which she’ll then mail to me. It’s very sweet of her, but it’s not the same. Hmph.

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We made it to North Carolina. The flight was relatively easy and uneventful, which is always a good thing. Cate was so happy to see Dave at the airport that when he picked her up, she buried her face in his neck and didn’t move for several minutes. Poor kiddo, I think she had decided that Daddy guy was gone for good. We’ve never seen her like that, it was sort of heartbreaking.

The house is super-cute and I love the neighborhood, so I’m really happy with our choice. But of course, it’s a rental so there are a few maintenance issues: the A/C works downstairs but not upstairs (a real problem, since it’s hot and upstairs is where we sleep), the garbage disposal is broken, the dryer took over three hours to dry one load of clothes, etc. So there are lots of little things. And the house doesn’t feel very clean to me, which I suppose is because the previous tenants had teenage boys. It’s not horrible by any stretch of the imagination, just maybe not quite as perfect as you’d expect a house to be that you’re moving into for the first time. I’m looking forward to getting unpacked and doing a really thorough scrub-down of the whole house. It’s sort of impossible to do right now with boxes everywhere.

Speaking of the boxes: my general rule for moving is to get the beds and bathrooms unpacked first, then you can take a shower, go to bed, and deal with everything else the next day. Makes sense, right? Well, I consider it a huge victory that among the hundreds of boxes in our house, I was able to find the boxes with our bedding in them (crib bedding too! different box!) and get everything fixed up with a very agitated 18 month-old running around demanding our constant attention. Score one for teamwork: Dave kept Cate distracted while I got the beds made.

The cats were delivered this afternoon, and the poor kitties are totally freaked out, but very happy to see us. Cate missed her little buddy so much, she and Beaumont have basically been making out for hours (lots of full-on face nuzzles). Teenie is so happy to see us that she’s even been letting Cate pet her, which is kind of a huge deal for her. And Teenie is usually the skittish one who hides under our bed all the time, but she’s been exploring both upstairs and downstairs of the house, so that’s great. She hisses at Beaumont when he gets too close to her personal space, but otherwise they’re both fine.

Cate didn’t go into her crib easily tonight, which I was kind of expecting, since it’s her same crib but in a totally foreign room. She freaked when I put her down, and I didn’t have the heart to make her cry it out on her first night, so I brought her into our bed until she fell asleep (which took about three minutes tops - baby girl was worn slap out), then I moved her to her crib. I’m wondering if I’m going to get a 3 a.m. wake-up call or not. Fingers crossed that we all sleep well this first night.

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It feels like we’ve been in Mississippi forever. I think Cate has decided that this is her new home. She’s finally starting to relax and sleep somewhat normally here, and now we’re about to leave for yet another totally new and unfamiliar environment. Sigh.

My sister was supposed to fly back to New York yesterday, but appears to have come down with some sort of devil stomach virus, so she had to reschedule her flight yesterday. And again today. Now she’s thinking that maybe she’ll fly back on Friday or Saturday. Poor thing, she’s been absolutely miserable, and Cate has been so sad without her beloved “Dacy” to entertain her.

Luckily, none of the rest of us have come down with whatever it is that’s making her sick, so that’s good. Watch, I just jinxed us all by saying that.

My mom’s been having a lot of post-chemo tests run while we’ve been here. Yesterday she had a bone scan to find out whether or not her cancer had metasticized (sp?). We found out today that she is cancer-free, so that’s great news.

According to Dave, our stuff arrived at our house in North Carolina today, and it’s looking good so far. The movers did manage to dent my car, but it’s just cosmetic and the movers are going to have to compensate us for the damage. Still… ugh. Sucks.

Cate and I fly up to Raleigh tomorrow. I can’t wait to see Dave - Cate and I have both really missed him for the past ten (10!) days. Cate really misses the cats too; my parents’ cat is kind of mean and hisses anytime Cate goes near her, so I know she’ll be so happy when she can go back to abusing Beaumont all the live-long day.

More updates when I have Internet access again. Friday, I think? I’m not sure. Hopefully soon.

Edited to add: More pictures have been added to the Flickr set of our trip. You can even go see pictures of my mama’s cute little bald head in there.

Good times.

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We’re having a good time in Jackson, other than the fact that Cate’s sleeping schedule has gone completely haywire and she’s acting a little bit bipolar because of it. She’s been super-clingy too, but I think that’s normal with all the changes going on right now. Different house, different bed, no Daddy, no kitties, all these “new” people around (she’s met her grandparents and aunt before, obviously, but long enough ago that she didn’t remember them). It’s been really stressful for her, but she’s starting to relax now, and overall she’s doing really well.

As for me, I’m just trying to stay inside as much as possible, because oh my lord, it is HOT. I’m trying to keep Cate inside too, because she developed a really nasty heat rash all over her chest and arms after only 2 days here. It’s crazy. I miss Seattle weather already.

But we have been having a lot of fun too.

You can see the whole set here, if you’re interested. I’ll be adding more as the week goes on, I’m sure.

Oh, and Cate’s already learned that her grandparents are Mimi and Pop-Pop (she’s called them both by their names), and she absolutely adores “Dacy” (Tracy). Seriously, I don’t know what she’s going to do after we move and she doesn’t have an audience applauding her every move anymore. She will be one sad little girl with just boring ol’ Mommy and Daddy around.

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The moving and house closing went off as well as could reasonably be expected. I was surprisingly ok about most of it; I cried when I left our house and again when we left Patsy’s for the last time, but otherwise I kept it together. We had a great time with my sister, had dinner with Kris, took Cate to the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle on Wednesday, and then flew to Mississippi on Thursday morning.

As it turns out, I was expecting the Tuesday (the Move Day) to be the worst, but no, it was Thursday that was our hell day.

First, just as we were pulling up to the rental car return place, Cate projectile-barfed all over the car seat, herself, and the entire back seat. It was milk. Which - in reverse - smells like death and is all curdled like cottage cheese. Seriously, seriously gross. I held her out in front of me like she was a bomb and ran to the ladies’ room, where I cleaned her up with wet naps and changed her clothes while she screamed bloody murder.

Meanwhile, if rental car companies maintain any sort of blacklist, I’m sure that Tracy will be forever banned from Dollar Rent-A-Car, because she just handed over the keys to the puke-soaked car with a “um, sorry!” and took off. She was mortified, but what could we do? It’s not like we had the time or resources to clean it ourselves. As it was, the whole incident made us so late that we almost missed our flight.

But! We made our flight and Cate was fine all the way to Atlanta - she even slept for 2.5 hours of it. Yay! Then we get to Atlanta and find out that our connecting flight to Jackson was cancelled. Boo! So we spent over 6 hours hanging out in the Atlanta airport waiting for another one. Luckily Tracy is one of the Delta “Gold Crown” status people, so we got to hang out in the fancy club room with free cocktails (they also had both milk & apple juice for Cate, yippee!), which was better than your usual “stranded in an airport” scenario. So that was good, but it still sucks to be stuck in limbo like that.

Tracy was able to get on standby on the 7:20 flight since she has her fancy-shmancy status with Delta, but Cate & I were numbers 10 and 11 on the standby list because we aren’t Delta frequent flyers. I managed to get one seat booked on the 11 p.m. flight, and decided that I could just go with it and ride with Cate in my lap. She’s under 2, it’s legal.

After we talked about it, Tracy said she’d take Cate in her lap on the earlier flight, since it was better to go ahead & get the poor kiddo to her destination, rather than keeping her up past midnight. I agreed, then had a full-on panic attack when I saw my baby leaving to get on a plane that I wasn’t on. That was an irrational Mommy Phobia that I didn’t even know I had. What if something happened and I wasn’t there? I mean, if the plane crashed and we were both on it, yes that’s tragic and awful. But if something happened to her and I was left behind… I don’t know how I’d live with myself.

Luckily, when they started going through the names on the standby list, I was the LAST ONE called. I hugged the Delta ticket agent so hard that I dropped my water bottle, ran onto the plane, got the lady sitting next to Tracy (with a now-screeeaming Cate in her lap) to swap seats with me so I could sit with them. Once we were seated and everything was ok, I started to cry. I just couldn’t take it anymore, the panic effect wore off, I was so exhausted (we had all been up since 4:30 a.m.) and I broke down. I’m pretty sure it’s not the last time I’ll cry during all of this, too.

The 7:20 flight didn’t actually leave until almost 9:30, so we finally got to Jackson somewhere around 10 p.m. Cate didn’t fall asleep until almost 1, but at least she slept until 9 a.m. (apparently she’s still on west coast time, thank the stars).

Today’s been ok. It’s just been really hard because Cate doesn’t understand what’s going on so she’s been super-clingy and crying a lot more than usual. She pretty much freaks anytime I’m out of her line of vision. Going to the bathroom is a challenge. It’s upsetting for me because I know this isn’t her normal personality and I don’t really have any way to reassure her and make her feel secure that it’s all ok.

But it’s great to see my parents - especially my mom, who looks very cute with her little bald head. And I’m so excited about the people we’re going to visit with while we’re in town. (Danielle, email me if you’re around this week!)

I’m not sure if this makes sense, but it hasn’t quite sunk in that we’re not going back to Seattle when this trip is over. Weird.

Meanwhile, Dave is having all kinds of fun driving cross-country and sightseeing along the way. He’s extended his trip by a couple of days just so he has time to see more stuff. I think he’s in Minneapolis tonight. I’m just glad someone is having fun.

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Cate is 18 months old today. She had her well-baby checkup on Friday, and she’s still solidly in the 75-90th percentiles for height and weight (33 inches tall, 26.6 pounds), while her head circumference is still off the charts. That’s my girl, ever consistent.

This is normally when I would write a post about her latest development milestones, but I don’t really know where to start. She blows our minds with some new word (or sentence!) every day, and it’s really hard to keep track of all of her latest cool tricks. She’s also starting to enter into the “terrible two’s” phase where she tests our limits and throws unbelievable meltdowns when we say no, but as awful as those moments are, they’re pretty rare. For the most part, she’s just lovely, fun and delightful, and we can’t get enough of her.

Because she’s so aware of her environment and so consistent with her routine, I am a little worried about how this move is going to affect her. I know she understands a lot more words than she can say, so I keep telling her that we’re going to move to a new house this week, but it’ll be ok because Mommy, Daddy, the kitties, and all her toys are going to be there. I don’t know if she really gets it or not, but hopefully some of it is sinking in.

Speaking of the move, this is how things are going so far:
* Last night was my last girls’ night with my Seattle girls. Kind of sad, but I know I’m going to see a few of them at Kris’s wedding next March, so it wasn’t a “good-bye forever” kind of scenario. I didn’t even cry.

* The pet movers are coming to take the cats tonight. They have a 6 a.m. flight tomorrow morning, and there’s no way the transport people can get here to the boonies to pick them up and back to the airport in time. (We live about 30 miles from Sea-Tac, not an easy drive.) So they’ll board them tonight, fly them out first thing in the morning, and board them in Raleigh until we get there. I’m really going to miss them while they’re away.

* Monday morning, Dave is leaving for his cross-country drive, and the movers are coming to help me pack. We’ve gotten most of our stuff packed already, but this last stretch is sort of overwhelming, so we’re paying for help.

* Tuesday, the movers are loading up everything and starting their drive. My sister arrives around noon. She’s getting a rental car (with a toddler seat) because the movers are taking my car. Tracy, Cate and I are going to check into a hotel that night.

* Wednesday is our official closing date. Dave and I already signed our part of the paperwork last week (we signed early so Dave could leave on Monday), so the only thing on the agenda that day is to get the empty house cleaned, and get the keys over to the realtor. Hopefully, after how crazy the past week has been, Tracy, Cate and I will get some downtime in the afternoon to just hang out and have fun. I’d like to enjoy our last day in Seattle.

* Thursday, we fly to Mississippi. I know my parents are super-excited already. And considering the stuff my mom has already bought in anticipation of our arrival (fingerpaints, sidewalk chalk, an inflatable wading pool, countless toys), I know Cate is going to have an absolute blast there.

We’ll be in Mississippi for a week, then Cate and I fly to Raleigh on Thursday, August 7th. I can’t wait.

More updates when I can, but the blog might be pretty sparse over the next week or so.

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