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Oh my hell, y’all: the movers are coming a week from today. One. Week. Gulp!

We’re actually doing ok progress-wise, to the point where almost everything on my to-do list has been crossed off. But the things that remain - like, oh yeah, PACKING - are pretty huge.

So yeah, I’m wigging out. It’s gotten to the point that I’m now getting a whole flock of stress zits, which are starting about 10 feet below the surface of my skin and are coming up like big purple bruises on my face. Sex-ay.

And as much fun as I’m sure it is for people to read about my little mini-nervous breakdown over here, I’m going to change the topic to two funny and random Cate stories:

* The other night during her bath, I held up her little toy dolphin and say, “What is this?” I was trying to get her to either say or sign “fish.” (Yes, I know dolphins are mammals. It’s the closest thing to a fish that we’ve got among her bathtub toys.) Instead, she said, “BLUE!!” Shocked the heck out of me. When did she learn colors? I haven’t been able to get her to repeat it since then, but it was pretty cool.

* This morning, I was trying to get her out the door and into the car so I could take her to Patsy’s house. She insisted on carrying her ball outside with her, which fine, whatever gets you to move in that direction. Once we were in the driveway, she threw her ball, and it rolled under my car and got stuck near one of the tires. I sighed and muttered, “oh shit,” because I knew that meant I was going to have to get down on all fours and shimmy myself halfway under the car to retrieve it. And Cate, happy as a clam, parroted back, “SHIT!!” Umm. Uh-oh.

Looks like it’s time for Mommy to clean up her language, because we’re going to have a lot of explaining to do when we see the grandparents next week if she pulls that one again. Luckily, Cate can also say “sit” (since I’m always telling her that she can’t stand up in her chair, she has to sit down), so maybe I can pretend that’s what she’s saying and that her enunciation makes it sound like there’s an H when there really isn’t? Here’s hoping.

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Hey, did you know that the movers will be here two weeks from tomorrow? TWO WEEKS!!!!

While I go huddle in the corner, chewing my nails and having an anxiety attack about all the packing that I should be doing, here’s a cute video from when we took Cate to the park yesterday:

At the beginning, she signs “ball” and says “buh-buh-ball” about the kid and his dad who were playing basketball off to the side. (She ran over there about a half dozen times to say “HI!!” I think she really wanted to play with them.)

Toward the end of the video, she says “a buh-birdie.” I’m not sure why she repeats the B-sounds at the beginnings of certain words - she does the same thing with book and baby. We’re trying really hard to repeat the word back correctly to her, so she doesn’t develop a stutter. But it is awfully cute when she says it her way.

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It would appear that we officially have a house in North Carolina. Yay! It’s a super-cute house in a really nice neighborhood, it’s actually a little bit bigger than our current house, and you Seattle folks would fall over dead if you knew how much we’re going to be paying for it. For reals. I can’t quite believe myself how much we’re going to be saving.

So now I get to tell the movers that we actually have an address where they can deliver our stuff. Hallelujah. That’s one huge source of stress that’s been lifted.

I’m still trying to work out the details for moving Beaumont and Teenie. I’ve gotten an estimate from a pet-moving service that gets good reviews from what I’ve seen so far. They pick up the cats from our house, take them to the airport, take care of boarding them in Raleigh, and deliver them to our new house once we’ve arrived. They’re a bit pricey, but I’m thinking that the convenience factor alone might be worth it.

Total topic change, here’s some new Cate-speak for this week:
* At daycare, when she woke up from her nap: “Passy, come get me!” (Patsy said she thought she must’ve mis-heard her, but she said it twice. So Patsy did indeed go get her.)

* To me, when I was sitting at the kitchen table working on my laptop: “Get up! Get up!” She wanted me to stop typing and chase her around. So I did.

* Also, she knows the sign for bird, but she does it backwards, so it looks sort of like the bird’s beak is eating her face. It’s very Hitchcockian of her.

That’s all the news on our end. Hope everyone has a great Fourth of July!

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It’s July. That means we are moving this month. Gulp!

Really, I don’t know why I get so panicked and anxious whenever I think about it. It’s not like there’s that much packing left to do. Our bedroom and the kitchen are the bulk of it, plus sorting out the garden tools and whatnot in the garage. But that’s really it. The movers will be able to handle everything else in no time. A month seems like long enough to take care of those few things, right? So why do I get butterflies in my stomach every time I think about it?

I think part of it is that I don’t know where we’re going yet. Our “representatives” in North Carolina (my faboo cousin Cat and her realtor friend Cara) went looking for houses for us a couple of weeks ago, and they found 3 good possibilities. Our top pick turned out to already be rented. The second pick was 20 miles from Dave’s office, which didn’t seem feasible. I would’ve been happy with the third pick (cute house, nice neighborhood), except the landlord seemed totally shady and kept trying to come up with ways to make us pay rent for July, when hello, we won’t even be living there until after August 1st. So we passed on that place. Cat and Cara are going out to look at houses again tomorrow, and hopefully will find something great. Fingers crossed. And hoo boy, I am going to owe them both some phenomenal gift baskets after all this is over.

I’m also trying to figure out transportation arrangements for the cats, which is giving me a headache. I can’t fly them cargo, because the airlines won’t take them if it’s over 85 degrees, and the odds are pretty good that it will be at least 85 in North Carolina in late July. So I’m looking at pet moving services, and lordy they’re expensive, but it’s worth it if it means that I won’t have to worry about them possibly suffocating from the heat. If any of you have had some experience with a professional pet moving service, please drop me an email and let me know, ok?

Oh, and if you have any spare Valiums lying around and want to donate them to a good cause? I’ll give you my home address. And probably a kiss on the mouth.

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Ever have one of those days where your toddler wakes you up almost two hours earlier than usual for no discernible reason, and your house is completely trashed because you’ve let the housekeeping slide since you’ve sold and haven’t had to show the place, and the house also smells vaguely of baby poop because you really should’ve emptied the diaper pail last night, and then when you pull in the driveway after dropping your kid off at daycare, you see a big white utility van sitting there waiting and you remember that oh yeah, this was the day that the electrician was supposed to come?

No? Just me? Ok then!

So yeah, today has not been good so far. Cate woke up at 5:45 this morning, cheerful as a lark and totally wiiiide awake. She’s been getting up progressively earlier and earlier, and it’s driving me insane. I’m not sure if it’s because the sun is coming up earlier, or if it’s because she isn’t eating enough at night so she’s waking up because she’s hungry. (She has been eating less at dinner time, and when I go get her in the morning, she starts signing “milk” before I even get her out of her crib, so the hunger issue seems plausible.) And the food thing is the one issue that I might be able to work on, so I’m going to try to get her to eat more in the evening to see if that helps.

It wouldn’t be so bad if she was still going to bed at a reasonable time, but lately she’s been staying up until almost 10:00 every night. She’s not grouchy, she’s just a whirling dervish of energy and we don’t know how to calm her down other than to let her run around until she collapses from exhaustion.

Ok, cute baby video time! Last night we went out for a walk and I brought the video camera in case we saw the new baby horse down the street (sadly, he & his mama were in one of the back pastures where I couldn’t get a good shot of them). As we passed one of the little gravel side roads, these two dogs behind a fence started going berserk, barking and growling at us, and basically sounding like they wanted to eat us for lunch. Cate screamed “doggy!” and ran toward them.

They were a little scary, but she didn’t seem to notice. She does the sign for “dog” in this, or close to it - for those unfamiliar with baby sign language, you’re supposed to pat your hip like you’re calling a dog to you, and Cate pats her belly. But it was close enough, I knew what she meant. She also screams “Patsy!” after she signs “dog,” I guess because Patsy is the only person she knows who has dogs.

I love when she says “hi, baby” and waves at them.

P.S. She has two new words since yesterday, both used appropriately: “ball” and “book”. Right on.

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This weekend has been pretty fun. First of all, I think we might’ve found a place to live in Raleigh; we’re still waiting to find out for sure, and I really hope it works out because there aren’t any other houses that Cat saw on Friday that would really work for us, and I’d hate to ask her to go house-hunting twice. (But I know she will if I ask, because she loves me, and she’s quite possibly as excited as I am about this move.)

Saturday morning was sort of hectic, since we had plumbers and garage door repairmen here (ah, home repairs, how I won’t miss you when we’re renting). But Cate was in a fantastic mood and we had a great time playing; then she took a three-hour nap, and woke up just as I was leaving to go to my book club with my girlfriends. The book club was awesome. A few girls cancelled, so it ended up being me and three girls who are all engaged. (Linda’s getting married next month, Erin’s getting married in August, and Kris is getting married next March.) So there was all kinds of wedding talk, which was pretty hilarious, and it made me so glad that I’m not in the middle of planning a wedding because hoo boy, that was a stressful period in my life.

Oh, and for the record? Coming home to your husband bathing your 16 month-old toddler and seeing them having their own little conversation and splashing and laughing? That is heart-meltingly awesome.

This morning, since it’s Father’s Day, we let Dave sleep in. Well, I tried to let him sleep, but Cate had other ideas. We had to come upstairs a couple of times to change her diaper or get dressed or whatever, and every time she’d tear down the hall to our room shrieking, “Daddy!!” So, eh, what can you do? After he got up, I let him keep Cate entertained for a while and I went outside to mow the lawn. All two acres. By myself. Because I’m a good wife like that. Also because it’s a beautiful day, so it was no big hardship on me to spend two hours outside.

Happy Father’s Day to Dave and all the other amazing dads out there who read this. (And to my own dad too, who doesn’t read this site, but I guess I ought to throw it out there just in case he ever does.)

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I have about five or six pieces of paper floating around with various to-do lists written on them, so today I decided to get all organized and type up everything in a Word document. And can I just say? Holy crap, I have a lot that I need to do. I don’t know if the word “overwhelmed” even begins to cover how I’m feeling right now.

I feel like I’ve either been on the phone or meeting with various contractors all week for the ridiculous number of things we have to do to fix this place up (per the inspection report), and I’m wiped out. Oh, and something is blooming right now that is causing me some major allergy issues. So I’m trying to negotiate with contractors while on massive amounts of antihistamines. Good times.

So hey, should I lighten the mood away from my current state of anxiety and panic, and give you some fun baby updates? Sure, why not!
* Cate’s getting really good with names. She knows all the kids at daycare, and yesterday when we were leaving, I told her to say bye-bye to Patsy. She said, “Bass-y, bye!!” (That “P” sound eludes her sometimes. Oh well, we know what she means.)

* She figured how to go down the stairs. It sort of freaked me out at first, but now I let her do it for practice, as long as I’m right there to catch her in case she slips. But she basically lies on her stomach and backs down the steps, the same way that she goes up. Smart girl.

* The food texture issues seem to be starting to let up a little bit. The other day she actually touched a slice of banana and fed it to herself. Y’all probably don’t know how huge this is, but trust me, it’s big. She’s always been totally grossed out by anything with a vaguely squishy texture. She might eat it, but only if you put it in her mouth for her. So the fact that she’s decided that maybe she can stand to touch a non-crunchy food item is a pretty major milestone for us.

Oh, one other happy thing: while I was typing this, I got a phone call from Cat, and I think we might’ve found a house in Raleigh. Keep your fingers crossed. Yay!

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