One step closer to close

Hurray! Closing is scheduled for Friday. Hopefully all will go smoothly and we will be in the new house by the weekend. If so, I will try to put some pictures up so that everyone can admire our fashionable 80's pad. We are still in controversy over what to do with the downstairs floors. I am hoping that CJ bends to my wishes & installs bamboo in the living room/dining room. The last floor place we went to told us that bamboo was "a colossal waste of money" to which I wanted to reply, "Wow, what an excellent sales pitch!" I told him that I was just trying to do my part to protect the planet. Sheesh.
In the world of Paul, we have had one successful visit to the potty - although it seemed to be quite coincidental because he was rather shocked to realize what he had done (as was I)! Needless to say his success was several days ago and we have not seen any repeat performances. Not that there hasn't been plenty of time spent sitting and reading books (followed by running around the upstairs stark naked). I have a feeling that there will be a long road to a diaper free existence.

Otters, reptiles & squatters, oh my!

We took Paul on his first trip to the zoo this past weekend. It was quite the toasty day (can we say Global Warming???) and we had a great time seeing the animals. Paul seemed to enjoy the water animals and snakes the most. Unfortunately my camera wasn't working, but mom's was & she got a few cute shots. Not to worry, Paul's godparents got us a zoo pass so there will be many more trips in the future!

Despite the early rise into high 80's, I am really loving this weather! It helps that I am not in the hot classroom & instead home with my boy playing in the backyard. Sorry to all my sweating teacher friends!! I do miss it though, and have found myself longing for the mouthy retorts of preteens and the sweet smell of Axe. HAHAHAHA.

And no, in case anyone was wondering, we have not been able to get into the new house. The squatters are still there as evidenced by their piles of stuff in the garage. Yes, my husband is stalking the house (he continues to visit daily) and peering into the garage. I am hoping that no one calls the police on him. It has become quite heartbreaking to have this beautiful weather and not be out in the garden. We were so overcome with jealousy the other day when we walked out of the Depot empty handed. Dad offered to help us get out of our mopey state by handing me a broom and saying, "There's plenty of work to do around here!"

Hey buddy, can you spare a dime?

We are officially homeless. We successfully closed on the old house on Friday and have no idea when we will be able to close on the new one. Luckily the folks don't mind us hanging around a bit longer and haven't started charging rent.... yet. We walk/drive past the new house daily and grumble over the fact that we could be using this nice weather to fix up the front yard. Poor Paul, we keep telling him that it is his new house - he's probably wondering why we never go in!!

Not too much else to report; the family headed out to a local Korean church on Friday for a night of Korean food and praise music, and I had a lovely time hanging out with the girls on Saturday as we celebrated Amy's birthday (a month late).

Mr. Paul is A-OK!

Paul had his two year old checkup today. He is doing very well & has hit all of his developmental milestones (go Paul!). He is a bit low on the growth charts for weight & height; daddy remarked that he was "hanging by his toes off the bottom curve of the weight chart." Not that the boy doesn't eat, he does. He just never stops moving. I explained this to the doctor, who nodded knowingly. Then I asked if the chart was used primarily for white American children & he said it was actually calculated using averages for African-American children. Hmmmm... So I went online & found an Asian-American growth chart, & low & behold Paul is right around the 50th percentile. I can tell you for a fact that the boy is growing; he can now turn light switches on and off and reach all the doorknobs in the house. Oh & if he can't reach something, he'll find a chair to help him out. We must continually update the childproofing as he figures out a way around it. Luckily my little problem solver is no match for daddy the engineer.

bye bye llamas

Yesterday morning we woke up in our old house for the last time. It was nice to "sleep in" (Paul was at Grandma's) and have a relaxing morning reminiscing about our time in the house & listing the things we will miss/not miss (more on that below). Then the work began. It took about five hours to pack up the rest of the house & clean. Many thanks to Bryan & Amy, without whom we'd probably still be packing! Bryan expertly brought the truck right up to our front door (CJ most likely would have driven it straight into the house) and Amy helped clean and maintain sanity. Today we are headed to the new place to drop off our stuff. Unfortunately it may be a while before we actually move it due to the seller's death. Sigh. And we found out yesterday that her son is still living on the property. He was supposed to move out April 1. It is hard to be mad seeing as he has had a difficult week, but I am a little worried about leaving our stuff there. Of course we did not learn about this until after the truck was completely packed.

In the meantime, the weather is finally improving & we have been able to get Paul out of the house a bit. On Friday mom & I took him to the bike path, where he enjoyed enthusiastically naming everything "RIVER! BIRD! GRASS! DUCK! STICK!" and racing full speed ahead on the path. He even chased a couple of older gentleman out for a leisurely stroll. One commented that Paul was "full of life." That's for sure! He may be exhausting, but it he definitely puts a smile on the faces of everyone he meets!

Here are some things we will miss about our old home:

• when the snow lands on CJ's wall and makes it look like a Thomas Kincaide painting
• watching random creatures wander through our backyard (however we will not miss the deer eating all of our tulips, which btw they have already done, leaving the new homeowners with nothing but nubs)
• our GIANT garden (we will not miss the mosquitoes that made it nearly impossible to work out there)
• the fabulous butt workout you got from walking up our hill
• silence (we'll be in the 'burbs now!)
• driving past the llamas and various other farm animals, & listening to Paul make animal sounds
• the handful of friends that made our time there enjoyable. You are always welcome for a visit!

On the home front

The three of us are staying with my parents until our house closes. Our old house is scheduled to close April 14 (we are headed out there this weekend to move furniture) and the new house should close the next day. Well, yesterday we found out that our seller passed away. We knew she was sick and was selling because she had moved into assisted living, but her death was a bit of a shocker. The house had been on the market for almost a year and a half, so I told CJ that I am glad she was able to sell and not have to worry about leaving that burden with her children. This may seem silly seeing as we have never met them, but please keep her family in your prayers! We'll keep you posted on things as they develop & I'll post pictures of the new place as soon as we move in.

And now for something completly different

Okay, I couldn't resist starting this off with a Monty Python reference. Forgive me. The completely different being of course my new status as stay-at-home mom. Most likely this will not be a permanent change as I plan to find a teaching job for the fall, but for the time being I figured I would enjoy being home with Paul. Being home during naptime means having time to start a blog... so here it is. Enjoy!

Today is Paul's 2nd birthday. In my efforts to be more domestic, I made him an Elmo cake for his party this past weekend. Many doubted my abilities, (and why shouldn't they? I am not known for my cake making prowess) but I pulled it off. Paul proudly proclaimed "Melmo!" when the cake was brought forth and was able to blow out the candle with minimal spit. He has been sung to three times now and will most likely have a fourth tonight after dinner. Today at lunch he desperately tried to blow out his sundae, which incidentally had no candle. He proudly proclaims that he is "TWO" to anyone who cares and was heard counting in his crib this morning while waiting for me to rescue him. The boy is too darn cute.