Crazy Crawl

Anneliese's crawl has morphed from a normal beginner version, to a strange-but-cute one-legged gorilla version, to... this:


If you can't see the video embedded above, click here to watch it on YouTube.

We weren't sure what to call it, but every time she starts tramping around the house like this, Nathan laughs and says why are you doing that, Anneliese? That's crazy!  Hence: The Crazy Crawl.

For the record, sweetie girl, I'm not sure this is any easier than just standing up and walking. 

It's Always Something

We were supposed to buy our new house yesterday.  But we didn't.  Because... it's always something.

I mean, with all the glitches and setbacks and frustrations in this home-searching and home-buying process, why would we close on time? Right?  When we could be jerked around one last time?  Why wouldn't that happen?

{sigh}

After months of jumping through hoops and battling the air of faux-urgency that's surrounded the whole process (we need this form! today! we need this document verified! today!  we need these docs scanned in and emailed because we can't wait even! one! more! day! for it to arrive by mail! we need to verify Mark's employment! and paycheck! and bonus! and three-year bonus history! directly with a supervisor! right! this! second! and then two more times over the next week because it's our goal to get mark to thoroughly jerk his boss around in this process too!  awesome! ad nauseum), it turns out... well, there's a lot of people out there trying to close by the end of February, and, you know, they might not have time to push our papers through by our closing date.

Ugh.

Yes, I cried.

But they tell us everything is now approved and ready to go and funds can be dispersed at any time.  So we're doing it Tuesday afternoon.  I say that with all the uncertainty in the world.

If Tuesday afternoon comes and goes and there are no bloggity updates for a week, someone call or text Mark to get updates on how I'm doing in my new institutionalized life, because this house is on the brink of robbing me of the teensy tiny amount of emotional sanity I have left.

Just sayin'.

Today's grumpy post is brought to you Home Services Lending, an affiliate of Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, a division of Wells Fargo Bank, NA; and Freddie Mac, the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation.  Thank them both by never buying a house from them (FM) or borrowing mortgage money from them (HSL).  Your helpful tip o' the day.

Neighbors

Today we watched our favorite neighbors Jim and Renee (and baby Nick) send a moving truck full of the entire contents of their house down to Greenville SC.  And then we hugged them and waved bye bye and they drove away too.  And it was... well, kind of sad.  Sadder than I wanted to admit.

Seems like so much on our street has changed. Our across the street neighbors moved about the time Nathan was born, and we lost some awesome built-in neighborhood friends, and tons of easy socialization.  And now everything's changing even more.  Jim and Renee are gone; we're almost gone.  A chapter is ending.  I'm too foolishly sentimental not to notice that, even as another chapter begins.  I'm finding myself clinging to everyday memories in this house, this place, this neighborhood... this home.

The sight of Nathan and Anneliese peering out the window at our next-door neighbors (who aren't actually doing anything quite as enthralling as Nathan and Anneliese ever seem to think they're doing) is one I'm kind of going to miss when we're not in this house anymore.  And secretly I hope Amy and Drew miss these sweet faces watching them too.  What? It's not creepy when you're this age, it really is sweet!

Drew's truck and boat are fascinating!!

But I'm not ready to be nostalgic about this place yet.  We've got to sell it (and get the other one bought and renovated!) before I can open that emotional floodgate.

(And anyway I'm seeing Renee again in like two weeks.  It's not the end of the chapter yet, right?)

Sisters to Be

Sisters!!

Sprout is a healthy 17-week gestating baby, complete with girl parts!

It's a girl!

After having a sister as awesome as mine, how could I not be excited about this???

I'm sure I will have weepier sappier words about it at some point (be ready), but right now I'm just glad to know she's healthy.  Hearing her little heartbeat and seeing her move around on the ultrasound was so awesome this morning.  There's really no sound like it in the world.

And now we know what color to paint the nursery in the new house.  :)

Pictures of My Sister, by Nathan

The weekly dose of Nathan's photography.

Your daily Anneliese, through the eyes of her big brother:

Bedtime already?  Oh no.

Smiling for big brother :)

Baby girl and lego truck on the go!

No one doesn't like cheerios

Knowing how much Nathan adores his little sister, and how much he wants to take her picture, makes her even more beautiful (blurry but beautiful) in these shots.  Through a lens of love.  Yep, I just said that.

Princess Nathan

Last weekend on the way home from Huntersville after mom's surgery, Nathan and I went to a birthday party at my friend Jenny's house.  Her daughter Katie just turned three, and was having a princess party.

I think I'd been so busy worrying about protecting my daughter from princess culture* that it didn't occur to me to think about it with Nathan.  Funny, because...

Your daily Nathan: sweet princess fun :)

... He happily decorated a sparkly crown, learned all the princess names on the party decorations and candy wrappers, claimed three pink and green beaded necklaces as his very own, and at the end of the party he declared his favorite princess to be Ariel.  (And then later changed his mind to Princess Peach from MarioKart.)

Happy birthday Katie!! (Nathan's first birthday wish for Katie, three years ago.)

*Annoying pattern of letting little girls buy into a mindset of entitlement and special treatment and rescue from big strong men?  Or innocent fun where girls can wear pretty dresses and have sweet playtime and learn to be their own heroes?  I haven't decided yet. (I have another year before Anneliese knows about this stuff, right?)

Cruising!

As of valentine's day, Anneliese is officially a cruiser!  After months and months of waiting, she seems to be making gross motor progress in strides* over the last month, doesn't she?  She's not real fast at this whole cruising thing yet, but it's definitely legit.



If you can't see the embedded video, click here to watch on YouTube.

Yay sweet baby girl!!  Go, Anneliese go!

(I think it might be time for some kind of over/under poll about when those first steps will happen.  I'm calling first steps in this house, before we move in mid-April. She'll be eighteen months then. Cast your votes!)

*Pun intended.

Not Blogging, But...

I've spent the last week doing a whole lot of not blogging.  Again.  I'm pretending hundreds of you noticed and miss me (not just the three of you who texted me to make sure I'm ok, which I am, and yes you totally made me feel loved), and agree with my sister that finishing multiple retro-dated posts to hit publish on the same day is lame. 

Fair enough.  Here's what has been taking my time when real life calls me away from the internet, even during naptime.

1.) Showing the house.  Still showing like crazy, still trying to stay on top of keeping it clean, still uprooting multiple naptimes a week, still hauling the whole family (including Bowden) around Raleigh in the car on a moment's notice.  Still no legitimate offers.  We're closing on the new house next week regardless, but still... we need to sell this thing.

2.) Restructuring naptime.  Not just because of showings (92.7% of which have been during naptime; yes that's a proven statistic) but because it's recently become apparent that Nathan doesn't really need a nap anymore.  Ugh, that's painful even to write.  So I'm trying to find the right balance of him playing quietly in his room (thus buying me some precious alone time) but not actually falling asleep (in which case he dozes til dinnertime, wakes up cranky, then is wide awake in his dark room til at least 10pm).  It's an art form in progress.

3.) Picking out paint chips.  I have spent more hours than I should admit on paint websites and in paint books and looking through paint in stores trying to decide what I want for the new house. I have it narrowed down to ten colors.  I bought all ten samples at Lowe's and was met with crazy looks from several employees.  Wait, all these samples are for the *same person??*  Yeah that crazy pregnant lady over there.  Ohhhh.  Well you enjoy these, ma'am, we sure don't have too many folk buyin' this many samples all at once now!  Um, it's not all for one room, it's for a whole house.  This is how I decision-make.  Deal. 

4.) Road tripping.  I mentioned I went to Huntersville to help at my mom's house, post shoulder surgery last weekend.  I didn't mention how discouraged her immobile upper body is making her (read: I love her but she's proving true that old adage about doctors being the worst patients).  No mental energy for the internet after seeing your mom so defeated.  :(

Road Trip Nathan -- does he look like a big boy or a baby? I can't decide

5.) Dealing with poop.  Oh, this could be a whole post on its own, but I won't.  Probably.  The short version is that our road trip coincided with a poop-in-the-potty strike, as well as the discovery that keeping underwear dry all night is very possible and therefore is now required.  So those two events (refusal to poop in Marmie's potty and no diaper to fall back on, even at night) combined to result in some pretty severe constipation. Which resulted in some painful potty moments when we got home.  Lots of fear.  Lots of tears. (It's clear we're talking about Nathan here and not me, right?  Not that I'm without Issue in this arena myself, as a post-appointment cryfest in my doctor's parking lot yesterday can attest, but yeah... that's all I'm going to say about it because it's not a conversation fit for public consumption.  Oh and I hereby promise to never use the word consumption with regards to this again.  Ok I'm stopping this paragraph now.)

6.) Teaching a Bible study class.  This month, we watched the movie Up! and were scheduled to talk about it in the context of faith.  It was my turn to plan and lead the class.  It's amazing how long it can take to put together a God-related discussion of a Pixar movie, of all things.  But it went well, I think.

7.) Arguing with lenders and bankers. Hoo boy, that's a whole post in itself too, but I won't go there.  Suffice it to say we were blindsided last week with the realization that the mortgage we're getting on the new house isn't the one we originally opted for, we had a big communication fail with our lender, and we found ourselves shopping for a new loan with less than two weeks until closing.  We're sticking with the original bank, amended ("fixed," kind of) loan.  It is what it is. 

8.) Meeting with our builder.  Most of our renovation budget on the new house is going to repair the termite damage, but there are a few things we needed to figure out with our contractor, options-wise.  Flooring, pool fencing, possibly some appliances.  This is the fun part of  moving!

9.) Going on a real Valentine's date!  This was our fourteenth v-day together, and I think it's the first time we've gone on a real date.  Like, with a dinner reservation and cute shoes and everything.  Another Nathan (who Christmas-gifted us with not only a card for dinner at Mark's favorite restaurant, but also free sitting to go with it... friend win) said that this is our Golden Valentine's Day.  The fourteenth?  And v-day is on the fourteenth?  Apparently it's a Thing.  So, good thing we had a hott date then.

10.) Growing a baby.  Yep, still doing that.  Yep, still takes tons of energy.

Chocolate Hot

When we were in Huntersville with my mom this weekend, she thought it would be sweet to give Nathan his first taste of hot chocolate.  And it was indeed sweet.  In every sense of the word.  Sweet.

Your daily Nathan: sweet chocolate hot

Predictably, he loved it.  Called it chocolate hot.  So awesome.  We're all calling it that now.  Get on board.  All the cool kids are saying it.

Static WIN

Nathan and I are in Huntersville with my mom, who had shoulder surgery yesterday.  Anneliese stayed at home in Raleigh with Mark, and they spent part of today at a playground.

A playground with lots of static electricity, apparently.

Your daily Anneliese: and you thought her mullet was awesome

Also, is it just me or does Anneliese look kind of like a Who in this picture?  A very staticky Who?

Your Daily Nathan: Self-Portraits

Some of my favorite pictures I found on Nathan's camera were the ones he took of himself.  Clearly he has spent many a naptime perfecting the art of holding the camera at arm's length for to capture a handsome little self-portrait or two (or forty).

Oh yeah, he's an artiste.

Pulling Up!

Anneliese hit a major milestone on Saturday -- pulling up to a standing position! Sure, it might not seem that impressive in the grander scheme of baby firsts, and there are probably non-parents out there saying so what? but let me tell you, this is a super important step towards learning to walk.

Especially for a baby with gross motor delays as significant as Anneliese's, the fact that she started willingly bearing weight on her legs and is now using her upper body to pull herself into a standing position, in the course of just over a week... well, it's really really good. And I'm crazy proud of her.


(Not sure what happened with the volume on this one.)
If you can't see the video embedded above, click here to watch it on youtube.

Next thing you know she'll be cruising along the furniture... and then in a few months maybe taking some independent steps! Or maybe we should just focus on getting her to do this someplace besides her crib for now. :)

Praying Hands

Today isn't the first time I've posted a picture of Anneliese in this little pose.  But before she outgrows it, I have to share yet another glimpse and actually explain it. 

When she's at her most tired, the effort of keeping her little left thumb in her mouth is apparently just too much to manage.  So she uses her right hand to hold her left hand up in front of her face for maximum thumb soothing with minimal labor. 

Another Nathan pointed out months ago that it makes her look like she's praying.  A sentiment that makes this pattern even sweeter (and let's not lose sight of the fact that it was already super sweet).

Your daily Anneliese: praying hands

I hope someday she actually does combine a hug and a snuggle with a real prayer, and that she feels as thankful and as blessed as we feel to have her.  God loves you, little lady, and so do we.

Loving and Loathing the Messies

I get a lot of comments about how much alike Nathan and Anneliese look (and are), and some days I totally see it.  Other days, not at all.

Yesterday I gave Anneliese a bowl of cottage cheese and peaches with a spoon in it so she could get started on her lunch.  She did about two bites with the spoon and then started shoveling it in by the bare fistful.

Nathan had a minor freakout: "She needs a napkin!  She doesn't want her hands dirty!  Anneliese, eat with your spoon!!"

Then ten minutes later, she did the same thing with a bowl of oatmeal.  (Yes, I do regularly feed my children "breakfast" food at any any all dining times, thank you for asking.)

Nathan was beside himself in tidy ocd napkin-hoarding misery on the other side of the table.

Hilariously opposite, those two.

Prenatal Vites

Confession: I haven't really been taking prenatal vitamins for Sprout over the last three months. 

Do not judge me.

I know, I know.  It's terrible.  It's bad for my diet.  Especially if you're not keeping down many nutrient-rich meals (or junk food meals) -- and I'm not -- those vitamins are really helpful.  But I've convinced myself that they upset my tummy.  And y'all.  I'm so sick of throwing up.  I don't want to ingest something that makes me even more likely to have to go "spit in the potty" (Nathan's three-year-old unintentional euphemism for this new pattern in our lives). 

And I know it's terrible for my iron especially.  I don't get enough iron-rich foods* in a good month anyway (read: one where I'm not pregnant and am regularly keeping down three meals a day), but right now I need extra and am getting less.  I'm already getting the requisite scoldings and supplement threats from my OB's office about needing to keep my iron higher.  Not to mention my mom who insists my low iron could be why I'm cold all the time, and if I don't take those vitamins I'm forfeiting my right to complain to her about not being able to get warm.  But I'm pretty sure it's the iron that makes those pills so hard to keep down.  (The internet told me!)  Also I'm pretty sure I'm cold because it's winter.  Just sayin'.

Anyway.

So I told myself when I got to the second trimester, I'd stop being a slacker with the vites.  And even though my tummy seems to have missed the memo from my calendar that hello it's the second trimester, cease and desist all morning sickness kthx, I have taken a couple this week, and they've stayed down.

So here's the deal, internet: I am promising in this public(ish) forum to take one prenatal vitamin (half the daily dose) every morning when I don't get sick as soon as I wake up.  And if my tummy stays settled all day til dinnertime (usually my easiest meal to keep down), I will take the second. 

Someone hold me accountable!  Okay?  Tell me I can totally do it and Sprout needs it and it might make me warm (guilt and heat carry a lot of weight in my brain).

Lurker One and Lurker Two, y'all especially better praise me!  Praise me and encourage me like you haven't in months!  (Yes I am an unapologetic praise junkie.)  Do it.  Do it now.

*My mom is about to launch a blog-comment lecture about protein and fiber being found in lots of those foods too, and how I need more of all of that as well, in 3... 2... 1...

Snow Pictures, by Nathan

Remember how Nathan got a little-boy camera for Christmas?  Well he's been using it all the time, taking pictures of all the things in life he finds most important (our floors, our walls, his toys, his sister, the insides of his nostrils) and his SD card was getting kind of full.  So I uploaded his month's worth of photos to the computer, and sorted through them.

Not a small project.  He had taken more than six thousand pictures.  (And that's not counting the ones on the camera's hard drive, which I can't get to yet because I can't find his camera cord.)  (Also, how do I live in a world where my three-year-old son has a camera cord?)

But after I deleted the ones that were of nothing (thousands upon thousands of black squares, seriously) and the ones that were pretty much duplicates of the ones he had taken seconds before, I got it down to about forty keepers.

And I handed the camera back for round two.

In the meantime, I thought a couple of these were sweet and worth sharing.  Nathan was so excited by the snow the day after Christmas that he took lots of pictures of it to text to people.  (As a child of this millennium, he is operating under the assumption that his camera is also a phone.  With a touch screen.) 

of course he couldn't resist the pickup truck in the snow

Anneliese on the other side of the backseat during our snowy road trip

and there were hundreds more just like this one :)

Kind of fun seeing a snow day through Nathan's eyes, don't you think?

Real Housewife of Anderson Heights

[This is the story of how I'm becoming a Real Housewife of Anderson Heights.  Part one is here.]

Ok so we got the paperwork and earnest  money together and put an offer in on the termite house.  Which from now on I'm going to stop calling the termite house.  For realsies, we cannot have that name stick.  Anyone who calls it that can never come stay in our new guest house.  Got it??  Ok then.

So we put the offer in on the Anderson house on a Friday.  Saturday we found out it had been taken off the market.  Sunday we found out that's because they were re-listing with another agent.  Monday we found out (from the new agent) that there are other offers on the house as well.  (Weird.  Why would you fire your realtor and re-list if you have multiple offers on the place?  Fishy.)  And that they needed us to submit our "highest and best" offer by 5pm that day (nice) and they would choose from what got thrown at them.  This, about three minutes after we found out that Mark's company is officially merging with a huge Charlotte-based company at the end of the year.

What was that about life and a ton of bricks or something?

We did some soul-searching and some crying and hugging (and maybe a teensy amount of bickering... maybe) and decided that whatever happens with Mark's job over the next two years, we'd rather be sitting on that house than the one we're in now.  It's just a smarter investment.  So we threw our "highest and best" into the pot.  And held our breath.  Throw in one core-shaking, friendship-altering conversation with my best friend who spent the next two days trying awkwardly to avoid me, and you have a hell of a case of the Mondays.

On Tuesday we found out that the seller (Freddie Mac, it's a foreclosure) countered the first and second best offers, and both of those buyers rejected.  Promising, because it meant we were still in it.  Frustrating, because, um, they're countering?  They already asked for our "highest and best," and made us put that in writing, in those words, and now they're asking for even more?  Punks.  It was that Tuesday I decided I officially hate (loathe abhor) Freddie Mac.  But since they own the house we would like to own, we had to play nice.

On Wednesday they sent us a counter.  It was higher than what we originally offered, which was admittedly a lowball (but still substantially higher than we ever started out planning to spend).  Our lender did some number crunching, we did some hand-wringing... and we accepted.

So now we're under contract on a house we love in Anderson Heights with a guesthouse and a pool.  (Did I mention the pool?  It has a pool!)  Who are we??

When I tell people where it is, I get kind of embarrassed in a way.  Like I don't belong there.  The neighborhood is full of people who are pretty well-off and very... um, together.  Well, I'm sure they're not all perfect but as a rule they do a darned good job of presenting themselves that way.  And in case you hadn't noticed, I might do a decent job of running a household, but I don't even pretend to make it look easy or glamorous.  I'm not one of Those People.  And I don't plan to ever be.  (Besides the everyday hair-brushing which I totally promise to continue.)

Another Nathan keeps joking that a reality tv crew should be following me around to highlight how truly unlike Those People I really am.  Because here's the reality: I am totally not going to fit in there.  (Especially when my new neighbors see what we're paying for our house.  Um, they're going to hate us.)  Even though I totally brush my hair almost every day now, I still don't put on makeup or cute clothes for quick errands (only for Mark and Jesus, y'all) and my kids don't wear name-brand clothes.  We buy used cars and store brand groceries.  I don't care a lick about keeping up appearances. 

I'm sure there are bound to be others like me in my new neighborhood.  I'll meet them and we'll be friends who roll eyes at the ones who name-drop and are more impressed by fancy labels and titles than kindness and humor (to be fair, our good friends the Chamblees will be some of our new neighbors, and they've always loved us for exactly who we are* so maybe I don't need to be so worried).  In the meantime I'm going to be That Mom who stands barefoot in the front yard, baby on the boob, toddler in the dirt (side note: have I mentioned recently that Anneliese might be the dirtiest child on the planet?  story for another day), preschooler running around hollering about the termite house, husband blaring techno music from his computer with the windows wide open. 

That's who we are, and I don't want us be anybody else.  But I do want to live in that house. :)

I want to teach my kids to swim there, I want to teach them to ride bikes in the grass out back, I want to walk them to the elementary school a few blocks over, I want to fuss at them for never remembering to take off their wet swimsuits before sitting on the furniture.  I want to fuss at my sister for peeing in the pool.  (Oh, she will.)  I want to watch my three babies (!!) sitting together in the bonus room's window seat, fingers and noses to the glass, watching for Daddy to come home from work.  I want to see Bowden explore the backyard and avidly steer clear of any and all drains (she's a phobic little beast).  I want to see visiting friends wander from the guest house to the kitchen in their PJs, in search of coffee and cereal, their own babies slobbery and dozing on their shoulders.  I want to see my children thundering down the staircase on Christmas morning to see what's in their stockings.  I want to sit on the back deck and have a glass of wine with Mark (and then I want to make out with him).  I want to pick out paint colors and set up a cutie nursery and bring Sprout home... to lots of snuggles and books underneath the upstairs dormer windows.  I'm ready to start my family's new life there.

Dear Someone, please buy our house so I can be a Real Housewife of Anderson Heights.  Love, Erin

*As long as we keep socks on our babies.