The past couple of months have been pretty eventful for the ol' Johnson family, and a lot of things have been getting neglected...like home organization, for example. Piles of clutter have been creeping up everywhere, various cupboards and drawers are starting to spill out their haphazardly piled contents, and my duster hasn't seen the light of day for weeks. I see two reasons for this:
1) We have way more stuff than we have places to put it, and
2) The fact that we are moving in a few months has only encouraged my housekeeping apathy; I'll have to do it all in a little while, so why bother now?
As much as I can't wait to get out of this apartment, it IS home for the time being, so I've decided to start sprucing things up, one little project at a time. I'm quite pleased with the results; there's something rather satisfying about hauling everything out of a cupboard, scrubbing it out and neatly replacing the contents. Catharsis for the home is catharsis for the soul, I suppose. Besides, I'll have that much less to do in the upcoming cleaning/painting/packing/moving insanity that is fast approaching. It's an exciting but daunting prospect.
On the Emmett front...no more answers yet. We took him for a bunch of blood tests but the genetic testing needs to be redone, and now he needs a small intestine biopsy as well because they suspect he has celiac disease. Oh, and the medicine they prescribed to calm him down for medical appointments makes him hyper instead. Heaven help me! He is still doing fantastic in school though - this morning it occurred to me that I can't remember the last time I asked Em to "use his words". He's come so far since February! He's also obsessed with pigs right now and loves to watch "Charlotte's Web 2". In fact, the other day he came up to me and introduced himself as "Wilbert" the pig and started oinking. What a character!
Seth is doing great as well...walking like a pro, and saying about 10 words regularly. He is SO different than Emmett, I feel like I don't know what to do with him sometimes. When Emmett gets upset, he wants cuddles, songs, etc...any kind of mama attention. Seth doesn't want that at all - if he wipes out he gets MAD and throws a little "life is NO FAIR!!" style tantrum. You need to distract him or just let him burn out on his own...he's my little Mr. Independent. Figuring out how to parent Seth the way he needs to be parented has been a real learning experience - I'm really enjoying him though! My Sethers is moving from baby to toddler so fast, I'm trying to soak up all of his "babyness" before it's gone.
I've booked us in for a family portrait this Friday...I probably don't need to add anything to our current chaos, but I want to document our family as it is now - time is going so fast. Life is really chugging along, and I've got to try to savor the good moments when they come (and handle the disappointments and trials with some sense of decorum). Every day I'm reminded of the fact that my little family won't be little forever.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Friday, April 16, 2010
We bought a house!
Yep, we did it. James and I have joined the ranks of the property owners. We bought a townhouse in Mill Woods today, and we're pretty durn excited about it. :)
It's 1200 sq feet, 3 bedroom, 1 1/2 bath with a little patio type yard in the back. It's not much, but it's ours! I'm not going to post pictures yet because frankly, it needs a really good cleaning and a lot of paint, but we're going to fix it up nice. We don't take possession until June so now it's a matter of sit and wait (and pack, and plan!).
I remember when Emmett was a baby, and housing prices went through the roof...I really felt like we'd never be able to afford our own place. I'm so glad that wasn't the case. I know it's going to be a lot of work (and money!) but I think I'm really going to enjoy fixing up things the way we want them and turning it into OUR home!
It's 1200 sq feet, 3 bedroom, 1 1/2 bath with a little patio type yard in the back. It's not much, but it's ours! I'm not going to post pictures yet because frankly, it needs a really good cleaning and a lot of paint, but we're going to fix it up nice. We don't take possession until June so now it's a matter of sit and wait (and pack, and plan!).
I remember when Emmett was a baby, and housing prices went through the roof...I really felt like we'd never be able to afford our own place. I'm so glad that wasn't the case. I know it's going to be a lot of work (and money!) but I think I'm really going to enjoy fixing up things the way we want them and turning it into OUR home!
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Adventures in House Hunting
The past 2 weeks have been crazy stressful - we found a (great!) realtor, put an offer down on a house 2 hours after we started looking, sat in limbo on that for DAYS, realized they were trying to screw us over big time on the deal, and walked away from our "dream" house. Sigh.
Yesterday we went out again, and this time we took the kids with us. They were SO good and sweet! Emmett *clearly* has a HUGE crush on our realtor...he was calling her by name and asking her to "Come here!", following her around, etc and was SO sad when she had to leave. We also think that he thought we were looking at the realtor's own house, because he kept asking to see "Jaclyn's room"! Seth was his usual charming self, trying out all the stairs he could find and just wandering around and clapping. We discovered the boys' #1 criteria for a house - ceiling fans! The last place we looked at had a couple of them, and both boys were absolutely enthralled - it took a lot of coaxing (well, forceable removal essentially) to get them away from those fans!
We've decided to put down an offer today on another place...fingers crossed this one works out! In any case there is a lot of "sweat equity" work in our future...at our price point the stuff that's available is in most cases a little run down looking. James and I aren't afraid of a little hard work though, and the thought of renovating things to our taste is pretty exciting. The last time I was allowed to paint/decorate how I want, I was 16 and living at home, and that was a looong time ago. Mostly I am just super ready for us to have a space of our own and a place for the kids to grow up!
Yesterday we went out again, and this time we took the kids with us. They were SO good and sweet! Emmett *clearly* has a HUGE crush on our realtor...he was calling her by name and asking her to "Come here!", following her around, etc and was SO sad when she had to leave. We also think that he thought we were looking at the realtor's own house, because he kept asking to see "Jaclyn's room"! Seth was his usual charming self, trying out all the stairs he could find and just wandering around and clapping. We discovered the boys' #1 criteria for a house - ceiling fans! The last place we looked at had a couple of them, and both boys were absolutely enthralled - it took a lot of coaxing (well, forceable removal essentially) to get them away from those fans!
We've decided to put down an offer today on another place...fingers crossed this one works out! In any case there is a lot of "sweat equity" work in our future...at our price point the stuff that's available is in most cases a little run down looking. James and I aren't afraid of a little hard work though, and the thought of renovating things to our taste is pretty exciting. The last time I was allowed to paint/decorate how I want, I was 16 and living at home, and that was a looong time ago. Mostly I am just super ready for us to have a space of our own and a place for the kids to grow up!
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