Category Archives: Friends & Family

family weekend

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Quick post just to say that my parents are flying in this afternoon, my sister is flying in tomorrow, and my brother is driving over at some point, so we’re going to have one big family-filled weekend. No big reason for the event, it’s just for fun. And everyone wants to see the new house, even though I’ve warned them that there’s still large portions of it in boxes, so they shouldn’t have high expectations.

I’m really looking forward to it. But I doubt I’ll be updating my blog between now and when they leave on Monday. But I’m sure I’ll be back with tons of pictures to help make up for it.

In the meantime, here’s a completely gratuitous photo of Cate running in circles with glee over the shiny red shoes that her fabulous aunt Tracy sent her.

on the run from the camera

Adorable, no? (That was the best shot I could get. She wouldn’t stop running long enough for me to take her picture.)

Ok, back to frantically cleaning!

soggy moving day

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If you read my cousin Cat’s blog, you know that they’re doing a massive house renovation and expansion to make room for baby #2 (arriving in February!). So to keep themselves from having their daily routines disrupted – and to keep e-baby from trampling through construction dust every day – they’ve moved into an apartment for the next three months.

Today was moving day, so Dave, Cate and I headed over to help. In the middle of a tropical storm. I’m not kidding; Hanna blew through here this morning, and we had some really crazy winds and pouring rain. The good news is that it cleared up by early afternoon, so we didn’t get too terribly soggy.

Cat hired a baby-sitter who took both girls to the children’s museum for a few hours. (The original plan had been a playground, but the rain sort of ruled that out.) Poor thing, she’s a teenager and after trying to wrangle two toddlers in a very crowded public place, we’ve probably put her off the idea of ever having kids. If I had half a brain, I would’ve just brought the sitter and e-baby over here to our house; they could’ve been indoors with easy access to snacks, TV, and whatever else they needed. Unfortunately I didn’t think of it until after the fact, but I guess we’ll know next time. In any case, it was nice to have a break so the grown-ups could get the moving done. I think they’re mostly settled at the new place now, and we got a little unpacking done too.

So it was a fun, although pretty tiring, day. And I still get such a kick out of watching Cate and Elizabeth play together. They seem to be noticing each other more and more – I wouldn’t exactly call it interacting at this point, but there’s definitely some interest there. And Cate’s picking up on more words and signs from being around another kid who talks and signs so much, which is pretty neat.

That reminds me: Cate now seems to understand threats. Last night I was sitting next to her crib waiting for her her to fall asleep (still doing the sleep-training thing), and she was squirming and chatting and not settling down. Finally, I said, “Catie, you need to go night-night right now or mama is gonna go bye-bye.” She said “noooo!”, but almost immediately lay down and went to sleep. I know it’s kind of mean to threaten abandonment, but it’s really a nice trick to have in my arsenal.

Labor Day visit

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Since my brother is just a couple hours’ drive away in Charlotte, he came over yesterday to spend the night. Yay, our first houseguest at the new place! We had Cat, Tony & Elizabeth come over for a cookout, and we broke in our grill by making some burgers. (We bought the grill back in Washington, but I think we only used it maybe twice. So it’s basically new, even though I think it’s over three years old.)

After Cat, Tony and Elizabeth left, my brother and Dave stayed up late drinking and talking about guitars and women who’ve broken their hearts. I know, it sounds like they should write a country music song together. There was some serious male bonding going on – kind of funny to be the only sober female observer in the room. I was fine until they started looking up YouTube clips of classic rock performances, then I decided that it was past my bedtime. I think they finally crashed around 3 or 4 in the morning, and they’re both more than a little hungover today.

Cate hasn’t seen my brother since Christmas, so I knew she wouldn’t remember him. I talked him up a lot beforehand, showing her pictures of him and saying, “this is Chris and he’s coming to visit us,” stuff like that. She still doesn’t quite know what to make of him. I think it’s because she spends so much time around women (other than Dave), she’s just a little iffy around men in general. She’s fine around Tony because she identifies him as a daddy, and my dad is an old guy who dotes all over her, so he’s ok… but Chris is just kind of a mystery. I know she’ll get used to him quickly, since she’s going to be seeing him a lot more often now that we live so much closer to each other. It’s just funny that when he talks to her, she won’t make eye contact with him, she’ll only look at him out of the corner of her eye.

Oh, and a quick sleep update: things are getting better and better. Cate’s gone from 45-minute screamfests down to just a few minutes of gratuitous fussing before she settles down and goes to sleep. But she’s downgraded from panicked screeching to some minor “I really don’t like this and I’m going to let you know I’m not happy” fussing, so that’s an amazing improvement in just a few days. I stay with her (sitting on the floor next to her crib) until she’s all the way asleep, and that seems to help. I’m hoping that this sleep transition won’t take more than a few weeks, but we’ll see how it goes.

P.S. On the Gustav subject: it sounds like all of my Louisiana relatives have safely evacuated, and I’m thankful for that. Now I’m just praying that it doesn’t cause any major damage to the area.

after midnight, we gon' let it all hang out

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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.

first weekend in the new place

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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.

blogging from our new house

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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.

has it only been a week?

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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.

Tracy, Cindy & Cate enjoy some pool time

Good times.