Moving Day

Some last-minute packing

Checking out the truck

"Whoa, did this thing just start moving?" (No, of course not. But someone may have been jumping on the back of it.)

Casey wasn't sure how he felt about moving, but the fact that it involved a big truck helped smooth things over with him.

Sometimes when Darby's excited, he gets really blurry.

This was taken BEFORE we told him he wouldn't actually get to drive the thing.

Yep, that's our new home! And a big thank you to Steve for helping us haul boxes, then holding the camera for this photo.

Simon's found a new favorite spot. I just wish I could send him up there with some Pledge and a rag ... it's really dusty, and I can't reach it without a ladder.

The kids enjoy "helping" me shovel snow, which we do on just about a daily basis now.

All I'm askin'

The move is complete, but the house has no internet yet.  Photos are forthcoming once Erika's back online in a day or two.

Casey's coming around a bit when it comes to music.  He prefers when I drive because I have an iPod, and I play music for him.  Usually it's kid stuff -- at some point I spotted a deal for 150 children's songs for a dollar, so we've got plenty.  "The Cat Came Back" is a highlight.

But I also push more grown-up fare on occasion.  That led to this week, when Casey started bothering Erika because he wanted to hear "Shtrect."  That was confusing.  You want to hear "Shrek" music? we asked, and he said yes, but that didn't help because we don't have any.  I don't even like Shrek, and and he'd certainly never heard any Shrek music on my iPod before.  But then this weekend I finally figured it out -- he's trying to say "Respect."  If I allowed it, he'd probably spend an entire trip from the apartment to the house and back happily listening to that one Aretha Franklin song 12 times in a row.  "Again!" he yells, every time the song ends.

Heh.  He likes it because it turns up in a cartoon short on one of our DVDs.  (I can usually get away with "Beyond the Sea" too, because he recognizes it from Finding Nemo.)

Work and Play at the House

We've spent quite a bit of time at the house the past few weeks cleaning and painting. Finally we're starting to see it all pay off. It smells like fresh paint and new carpet instead of wet dog and cigarette smoke.

Here's the living room with new carpet and new curtains (and a lot of space for the boys to run around). We don't have much furniture to put up here yet, so for a while it's going to be the room where we play soccer and have dance parties.


Casey took this sweet photo of Chris and Darby.


Casey thinks the fireplace is a great place to play cars (not when it's on). It's gas-powered, so we can just flip a switch and have a nice fire. Casey's very cautious around anything we tell him is hot, so really we just have to worry about Darby getting too close.


We put Darby to work cleaning the kitchen. I'll probably re-sweep that floor later.


All that sweeping was hard work, I guess. Time for a break. (Hey, you can see the old carpet in this photo--heavily-stained grayish berber. Yuck.)



The boys enjoy a snack.


Back at the apartment, we're making sure to pack all the important stuff, boys and cats included.

Our Little Cyrano

Casey is looking at a folded piece of paper that has nothing to do with Valentine's Day and composing little Valentine's Day greetings out loud:

"Dear Valentine, I love you are a rescuer. Happy Valentine's Day."

"Dear Valentine, I like you in the daytime. Happy Valentine's Day."

My boy's growing up

Last night, it happened for the first time:

"What's this song, Daddy?"

"That's called the Imperial March, it's a song from a movie."

"I want to watch the movie this is from!"

Atta boy.

Before and After Photos

Master bedroom before

In progress

We got this little bit of paint on the wall, and I totally freaked out, "Oh, no, what did we do?!"

AfterWe're happy with how it turned out. Chris picked orange because he wanted a warm color, and it definitely warms up the place. We are picturing it with very neutral bedding, maybe some black-and-white photography on the walls.

Boys bedroom before ... definitely not a fan of the previous owner's Badgers theme.

And, after. The color is called Sea Fog. I was looking for a blue that wouldn't be too babyish as they got older.

Monday we'll get our furniture moved in and start calling this place home!

Think "horror movie"

How bad is the dust in the new house?  See this post's title.

It's actually not nearly that bad overall, but you know what people don't touch ever again after installation? Ceiling fans. I did my best to clean a couple of them this weekend, and every first sweep of an arm would produce an impressive cloud of dust. I learned quickly to shield my eyes and to push the debris away from myself. But it left a pretty good pile of dust bunnies under the ladder.

Casey had been playing on his own but finally wandered into the room to see what I was up to. Immediately he drew up short at the sight of the dust piles.

"Daddy, what's this? What's this, Daddy?" (I hear that constantly -- always the repeated question, asked symmetrically.)

I told him they were dust piles and that they fell off the ceiling, etc. He studied them carefully while I scrubbed down a door.

"Yucky!" he announced.

"Yucky, you're right," I said.

"Daddy, I think this one's moving a little bit."

EEP.

Pictures of the Actual House

Chris mentioned that some people might like to see photos of our house, not just the neighbors' houses. So ... without further ado, some images from the MLS listing:

Upstairs living room

Kitchen

Dining room ... I have big plans to paint that dark blue wall immediately

Downstairs family room

Enjoying the View

Our new house is in a bit of a valley with huge, wooded hills surrounding us. Maybe it's because I grew up in flat, flat Indiana, but I am wowed by it.

View from the front porch:



View from the rear deck:

What the boys are up to these days

One of Darby's new favorite activities is coloring. He loves it so much that if he asks for the crayons, and you deny him, he will burst into tears on the spot. This is very different from Casey, who never had much patience for artistic endeavors. But now that Darby's doing it all the time, Casey wants to join in.

Krista gave this Five Little Monkeys puzzle to Casey for Christmas. It has 24 pieces, and at first I thought that was going to be way too advanced for him. The first few times, I helped a bit. By the third time, he put it together completely by himself.

Look how proud he is! At least, I think that's what that expression means.

I'm pretty sure this isn't the correct way to use this, but Darby finds this intensely amusing.


About a month ago, the boys and I took a trip to Indiana to see my parents. Here's Darby peeking through the railing over their staircase.

Brothers in arms

I remember when I was new to having kids, and Greg explained to me how Steve's responses could be plotted on a broad spectrum based on the nature of the screaming.  And it turned out to be true; there are many flavors of crying, and each tantrum by its tone and timbre is richly invested with meaning.  Sometimes I respond not at all.  Sometimes I find my decision-making triggered in such haste that it's minutes later that I find myself playing it back:  Did I really hurdle the couch?  I didn't even know I could do that.  And how much time did that save, really?  And now Darby has taught me a brand new variety:  the my-brother-took-my-toy scream.  We didn't get to hear that one as Casey grew up, and so we haven't known what we were missing.  But we sure hear it now.  Darby graces us with that one enough that we know it quite well.  We can tell from rooms away what just happened.  Usually, Casey has stolen the drumsticks, which lately are Darby's favorite objects.

So, sibling rivalry.  The friction continues to grow, and I just don't know how to handle it.  Hurting Darby is, of course, the cardinal sin in Casey's world, and correction on those occasions is swift and merciless.  But sometimes I watch to see how they work things out, and as Darby grows, he's becoming more and more capable of defending himself.  He's still easily outmuscled by his brother, which can be a problem, but sometimes they just play that way, Casey pulling Darby to the ground and Darby giggling and scrambling back to his feet.  It takes some supervision so they aren't knocking their own heads together, but I feel like they need some leeway for that stuff.  They're brothers, they'll enjoy it in the long run.  Right?

For some reason, I keep thinking of my sister knocking my two front baby teeth out of my head.  We worked it out eventually.

Last night I had the kids upstairs while Erika had a little space to herself in the family room.  We've been getting out the boxes again as we prepare to move from the apartment to a new house, and Casey's fascinated by the process, always making helpful suggestions on what to pack and how and where.  And so Erika was treated to the following exchange:

"Daddy, can we tape this box now?"

"What?  No, we're not packing Darby."

When I first started packing, Casey wanted to start with the cats.  We're not moving for three weeks.  Do I have to worry about this?