Farewell dear townhouse

Well it's finally here. It's the last week in our cute little townhouse. It served us well. We have a lot of memories in this house. It was our first house purchase to get us out of paying rent, this is where Jack was born, this is the only house our youngest kitty Danny has ever known. There have been a lot of long afternoons sitting in the living room watching Eric play his playstation or xbox (mostly before Jack). This was the first house that I helped to install a door (to the attic). It's also the first house that I've had to kick a door out (in my black high heel boots) because I got locked in. Any casting calls for a new Charlies Angel?

We've been here 6 1/2 years and we still managed not to get every room painted how we wanted it. But I tell you what. I had this house organized! I realized that more and more as I packed things to move. I'm going to have to find all new slick and nifty ways of organizing things in the new house now.

And now we're all packed. Kitchen is rendered useless with just some paper plates a can opener and a pizza pan left to be used. Potted plants have all been sent to mom's house and the clematis has been dug up and potted and sent to moms. I hope we didn't kill it.

Stress levels have been high but through it all I think Jack is doing absolutely fantastic. When we're packing he just runs around and amuses himself. He'll bounce from room to room to see what everyone is doing. Whenever he looks for something and it's been packed already we just tell him it's been put in a box to take to the new house. He seems to understand. At least my poor tired mind it telling me that he understands.

And now for the circus that will be our weekend. Friday morning Eric goes to work and Jack goes to daycare. Mom is coming to help me when the movers show up at dawn. At least I hope they show up at dawn. Then they take all our worldly possessions and store them over the weekend in a hot truck in a hot parking lot somewhere. Eric comes home half day at least and we have to pile all cleaning materials, my computer, the contents of my fridge and our luggage into our cars and drive down to stay with mom. Oh, how can I forget. My poor poor kitties will all be piled into my car for the 45 minute drive to my moms. Phoebe is lucky, she gets to sit on my lap but the other two have to be crammed into carriers for the trip. I fully expect to be covered in a brand new, fresh off the cat fur coat by the time I get to my moms.

I am going to do all I can to rest and relax on Saturday and Sunday because the circus resumes on Monday morning. Where we get up at the butt-crack of dawn to drive through rush hour back up to our house to a 9am settlement. Get through that as fast as possible and then race to the next settlement at 10:30. Lord help us. With any luck we'll get out of the second settlement, get to our new house and the movers will be waiting for us with my very toasty earthly possessions still in the truck from Friday.

Oh, and have I mentioned how difficult and exhausting it is to do all of this while 7 months pregnant?

Give me strength.

Animal, Vegetable or Mineral?

Jack : "Mommy, you're a boy."
Mommy: "No honey, Mommy is a girl."
Jack : "Mommy, you're a gweerl."
Mommy "Yes honey, Mommy is a girl. Can you say girl?"
Jack : "gweerl"
Mommy: "Close enough honey."
Jack : "Daddy is a boy."
Mommy : "That's right honey, Daddy is a boy and you are a boy too."
Jack : "No, I'm an alligator."
Mommy : "Ok honey."


Update 6/23/08 - I feel obligated to inform you that he is no longer an alligator. He's now a dinosaur.

Not so Hershey Park happy

I believe the ad goes something like "Hershey park happy, Hershey park glad." Well, let me tell you, we were not so Hershey Park happy and more like Hershey Park sad. It all started the night before. Jack either had a little flare-up from his virus or had some new bug starting and he and I were up most of the night. I'm pretty sure neither of us got much sleep after 1:00am. Strike 1. But when we got up at 7:00 he seemed ok. A little whiney but generally ok. Of course he didn't drink he milk or eat much breakfast. Strike 2. Oh, did I mention that the forecast was for 97 degrees? Strike 3. So we made the trip out, with a quick stop to pick up Aunt Leah. He didn't nap the whole way there. Strike 4. But he was still generally in good spirits and was looking forward to riding rides. Well we got there and he closed his finger in the door. Strike 5. He wasn't hurt but was upset enough that he needed to be carried by Daddy. Strike 6. Well we got to ride the Chocolate World ride and he was ok on that but once we were back outside and walking into the park he just wouldn't drink anything and it was so hot. Strike 7. After being there for about 30 minutes he started whining and saying something so we got down to hear what he said and he was asking to go back to Daddy's car and go home. Poor thing. We were hoping that if we could make it to the water rides that he would be ok but it didn't look like that was going to happen. Time to go home. No one was having any fun and we were all exhausted and we had only been there a total of an hour. We did ride the monorail and get a breeze but then we just picked up lunch and went home. Fortunately Jack did nap on the way home, or I should say as soon as we got into the car, so that was good. And by the time we got him home he seemed just fine.

So, mental note for all. If it's going to be 97 degrees, don't even bother taking a toddler to an amusement park. I, for one, feel like an idiot and an awful parent.

Oh, but as a side note, we were there just long enough for me to get a good flip-flop shaped tan on my feet...