Colin can sit up now by himself, and keep himself balanced for quite a long time. He sometimes flops over at the waist, but his torso is getting stronger every day.
I got video of Colin laughing from me tickling him, and of Colin sitting (and falling over!). I’ll try to get Dad to show me what to do to save it to files.
Tuesday night Colin got his first sitting up bath, in his little tub. Makes it much easier for me!
and it’s like we never left. The boys are asleep, I have the Sunday night game on the tv, and Dad is downstairs working. We had at least two showing while we were gone, and the same person who cancelled twice last week cancelled a showing for this morning (surprise!).
All in all, we had a good time. The accommodations were a bit rustic, but they served the purpose. We’re not used to having a kitchen on vacations. After we unpacked, Jim asked me to show him where the kitchen was, and then wanted to know where he was going to eat his pop-tarts for breakfast.
We had a day at the beach, a day at the pool, and then a thwarted day at the beach because of thunderstorms. We ate pizza and fries and ice cream, and walked the boards at night.
Jim’s favorite part was riding the rides. We stayed right near a nice amusement area. Jim picked out rides to ride by himself, rides to ride with Dad, and rides to ride with Mom. He tried bumper cars, the tilt-a-whirl, the carousel, a kids log flume, a kiddy roller coaster, and his favorite, the ferris wheel. As a souvenior, we had him make a spin art shirt (also because he ran out of shirts), and he got a new baseball hat because the hat we brought is suddenly too small.
While vacationing with kids leaves little time to truly relax, it was great to be away and not worry every day about cleaning the house and leaving it pristine every time we leave for a few hours. Dad and I picked up some goodies — fudge and salt water taffy — and I got to listen to HP7 while feeding Colin and going to sleep. Dad got to watch some videos with jim, and read his books.
I have pictures I have to pull off the old digital camera, and we used a waterproof disposable camera that we have to get developed digitally, so that will take a bit.
EDIT: I (maybe not so obviously) started this Sunday night, and just got to finish it now…
for a short mini vacation starting tomorrow. It’ll be a break from the endless cleaning and straightening and laundry (for me). For Dad, a mental break from all the extra work he’s been doing.
This is last minute because Dad realized he won’t be able to take any time other than this week until we move.
Colin is now scooting backwards. It takes about five minutes for him to get across the living room. He is also in the throes of teething — keeping me up for a couple hours last night with inconsolable crying. Probably not the best time to go away, but that’s why they make pain reliever and ice pops (that’s what worked last night).
Colin is sound asleep, next to me, in my bed. After last night’s multiple wakenings, he wouldn’t even think about falling asleep in his room, even while I fed him. I brought him in here, and he was asleep in about two minutes.
I got a short nap today, and it took all my energy to re-clean the house and then take the boys to the movies. It was a long showing for the house tonight, so I thought a movie would be good.
I was questioning my sanity as the theater filled and Colin started wigging because I took away the Junior Mints box on which he had been chewing. I got him distracted with walking around, only to discover that in my frantic attempt to empty the box, I dropped a couple on my lap, and they got smushed between Colin and me. He looked like he rolled in chocolate and I had it all over my shirt and skirt and hands. But otherwise, he was good. He ate and slept a little, and just got a bit antsy at the very end. Jim was very, very good, and liked the movie. I would do this again, but not buy the Junior mints.
We just had major wiggage with Colin, and it’s ended up with him in his crib, but it’s only been five minutes.
Colin did not take to sleeping in the crib last night, staying asleep for 45 minutes at most, 10 minutes at the least. So around 1.00am I gave in and took him to the basement where he fell asleep in my arms without nursing, which is good. We stayed on the couch all night, and I’m still tired from being up until 1.00+.
We had a showing on the house last night, so I spent three hours cleaning instead of napping, so that didn’t help either.
It was our selling agent taking the people through — people we saw looking at the house from across the street Tuesday night — so they know about the location. And since she took them through, we got the honest feedback, and there was nothing negative. So, all good on that. We have another showing tonight, so I’m taking the kids to the movies.
Jim and I just brought Colin home from his six-month doctor’s visit. The big bo-hunker is 20 pounds (and 4 ounces). He got four shots (again!) and drank his rotovirus vaccine. The little guy is sleeping off his trauma in his crib right now, like a good baby should.
Last night was a bit better for him in the crib. He only woke up every 90 minutes to two hours, instead of every hour. The doctor told him he should go online and chat with the other six month old babies who weigh as much as he does, because they’ll tell him that they sleep through the night for about TEN hours! Something tells me baby Colin has a lot of learning to do.
Jim’s Baby Puppy went to Colin’s doctor too, and he got one shot. He was braver than Colin, because he didn’t cry. But he got a cool band-aid.
We had a quickie showing on Saturday while I was out with the boys. Dad had about 15 minutes to clean up. Poor guy, I kept repeating, “Did you do X?” and he kept saying, “No.” So that put me in a bad mood. Sunday we tried to keep the house together, expecting that the schedulers will now always break the two hour limit we asked for. But now I’ve been letting it fall apart a bit. Mostly in apathy for the limited number of showings we’ve had. I feel like we’re in for the long haul now.
Last night was “re-introduce Colin to the crib” night. It took forever to get him to sleep, and then he was up every hour. I gave in about 6.00am to get more than an hour of uninterrupted sleep. The funny thing was that with all his fussing, at one point I covered him with a blankie, since he’s covered with mine when he sleeps with me. He nuzzled into it, and seriously, went right to sleep. Of course, the blankie was covering his face, so I had that to contend with. But it was weird that it calmed him right down.
I’ve spent the last three hours in bed, resting up from last night, so that I won’t completely cave tonight.
The little guy is next to me right now, nuzzling my quilt. I guess I didn’t realize how much he did this.
Later update: Finally, pictures in the June 2007 gallery have been added…
things have slowed down with the house. The last showing was Monday night, and we got good feedback on the things within our control — the appearance of the house. The location of the house, which is out of our control, has been the deal breaker and probably the cause behind the numerous cancellations. It has helped me relax a bit, not running around cleaning like a crazy person all the time. And I got all the laundry done today. Plus, I can still do little things around the house. I’m taking some of the stuff off Jim’s walls, in order to show them a little better, and we finally got the replacement registers installed in the living room.
Today is Colin’s six-month (half-birthday). He’s our little bruiser, our cute little crazy baby who is getting bigger and stronger every week. When he rolls over onto his belly, he pushes up into a crawling position, so we can just imagine that it won’t be long before he’s moving around.
Right now, he’s laying next to me, in “our” bed, since we’ve thrown in the towel and have him sleeping with us. But now that he’s hit six months, the sleep training can begin.
Colin’s been teething the last week or so, and he’s chewing on everything. We’ve even quit on the real food feeding, because he just wants to chew on the spoon.
So, we had a showing last night (Sunday), and spent all weekend prepping for that. Three trips to storage helped cut down on the packing of the car. We were supposed to be away for two hours, so we went bowling. Dad whupped us all, and Jim seemed to like it. Colin slept and wanted to eat (our food).
On Sunday they scheduled another showing Monday morning. So we left the house alone when we got home Sunday, and I took the kids out for breakfast to cut down on my cleaning. Then we went to kill time at the library. Another call and another showing for tonight at five. Then the morning showing cancelled. We went out to lunch, and I wanted to check to see if the trash had been picked up yet (it hadn’t). At lunch, we get a call cancelling the five o’clock showing. So we head home and go down for naps. There’s another call for a new showing at five. And then another call for a showing at 6.30. Then, right before we’re leaving, a call cancelling the 6.30 showing, rescheduling it for Saturday. So we leave for the library again (it’s the only place that’s open, except the malls). I get a call cancelling the 5.00 showing. So it seems like a day wasted. I come home, rest for a bit, cuddle with the kids, then go to start dinner. Dad gets home, and…
Knock knock. It’s 6.40, and it’s someone to see the house. Seems like the scheduler messed up, and what I think happened (in hindsight) is that the reschedule was for an earlier cancelled appointment, not the 6.30 one. Anyway, we cleaned up in record time, and took the kids to the park.
This has been exhausting in this heat. I’m looking for better places than the library to hang out, if we need to. Next on the list is the aquarium.
We didn’t get an offer — that would have been too much to hope for, but we got good feedback on the house from the realtor who showed it. She said that it was the cleanest house she’s ever shown. So, the hard work may be worth it.
We brought back all the stuff into the house, and I’ve been resorting it, and made two trips to storage today. Also doing laundry, so that I’m not dragging out bags of it when it’s tome for another showing.
With this work, I’m finding it easier to do little cleaning to keep the house up, so in the future weeks to come, it hopefully won’t take too long to get ready for a showing, and maybe we can relax a bit.
My plan for having the sign up this past weekend before the holiday had a point, so that people on vacation might see it too, if this isn’t there normal route.
Well, my plan seemed to worked. We had our first showing tonight. We’re anxiously awaiting feedback, as we have all retreated to our own corners of the house, exhausted from the five hours of cleaning prior to the showing. Dad even came home early to help. We finished in the nick of time, with the cars loaded up with all the stuff that wouldn’t fit anywhere!
that Colin has not ony added oatmeal cereal and peas to his menu, but his newest favorite food is teething biscuit. He hold them very well, chomps away.
I really wanted the For Sale sign on the yard by the 30th, and it was up on the evening of the 29th. The realtor took pictures, and I’ve seen the online listing and virtual tour she made, and I think it looks great. She really worked with us on getting all the listing details right, and it’s very detailed. We’ll email the MLS number when it’s posted.
I’ve been keeping track of houses in the zip code that are 3b/1.5ba, and one up the street sold in 69 days. It wasn’t on the main road, just off it, no garage, and very dated looking. They got about 95-96% of their asking price. There’s another in the area that I thought was big competition, and it looks like it’s off the market. I’m waiting to hear from our realtor if it sold or not. This is something I didn’t expect a realtor could do for us, and it’s neat.
Anyway, we sort of took last weekend off, and put off making the house active for showings until the 5th. So today is big cleaning day. I’m currently degreasing the stove and cabinets. For the past two nights I’ve been ironing and hemming curtains. Yesterday was another trip to IKEA to get some decorative goods for the basement. Some cool $5 lights really go a long way.
Yesterday we made one of the last “selections” for the new house — low voltage systems. We ended up getting a whole house vacuum (yay!), even though it’s more than I wanted to spend, it is going to be very useful for many years to come. The wand has two speeds, low for curtains and stuff, and high for rugs, and the unit is in the garage, so you can use it for your car. Additionally, we got a security system, really for two reasons — the biggest being one-touch fire/ems/police. No matter how controlled Jim’s seizures are, this kind of convenince will always be appreciated. The second thing about the system is that it will chime whenever anyone opens a door, which will be good with the boys. Lastly, we got an intercom system, which will let someone in the kitchen talk and listen to other parts of the house, plus it’s got a speaker hooked up to the doorbell. All the stuff is linked together in the basement, and will be expandable when that is finished off. We got TV and phone and network in the bedrooms, and a plasma tv setup in the family room. The cables are installed up high and then run down the wall to plug into the components. So we should be set for tv and data for the future.
So, while I’ve been writing this, the stove has been drying, and I’ll pass on my internet cleaning tip — cream of tartar is a gentle abrasive, and combined with dish soap (the handwashing kind), it got all the grease spots off the front of the stove. Onward!
