another day

Last night we went to the moldy apt to get the last of the saveables and throw some small stuff out. As we were driving up to the complex my heart sank and the depression returned. Went inside it grew. Scrambled to get everything on my list and get out! But then I started taking things to the dumpster and something strange happened I felt empowered!! It was like on that show Hoarders on A&E. You know they cry they complain they are self destructive but then on the last day they start to throw away stuff themselves and they feel great. There I was chucking some beloved yet moldy person items into a dumpster never to be seen or heard from again and I felt fabulous. I began to really throw them in there. Getting out my frustration and anger. And knowing with each thing I get rid of the closer we are to being able to move on. But still saddened. I just need this to be over. This day, this chapter in our lives, etc. Just want to crawl under the covers and come out in Spring!

So I leave, Peter stays behind to do some more work. But little man has to get home, get dinner, and get to bed. Now J hates having a dirty diaper, many times we have had to pull over to change him when we are super close to our destination but he just can not hold on. So on the 25 min drive he needs a change. I can smell that he needs a change. All I want to do is get home and finish my day and go to bed but he needs a change. I am willing him in my head to hang on, to not have a break down, just let us make it home. And he did. Thankfully, blissfully, he made it.
We pull up to the house and I am carrying a diaper bag, my knitting bag ( I had dreams of getting to the Wed night knitting group, ha ha ha), a walgreens bag, and J. The phone rings, its my mom. Have to call you back I say as I am about to drop it all, What, Have to call you back, When, 5 min, How long, click, She is in a place with bad reception and I need to unlock the door. It was about at this moment that I realize I feel slightly wet. J had peeded through everything!! EVERYTHING. and it was a cold night so he had many layers on and they are all soaking. My sweet little boy who hates being dirty didn't even complain the whole way home. He must have sensed that I needed him to chill more than he needed to be changed.
I walk through the door and let everything except the baby fall to the ground. The universe is testing me I feel. The last thing I want to do at this moment is deal with a mess of poop and pee and stained clothes and finding Jonah clean clothes to wear especially this close to bed time. But I am a mom and this is what I do. Deep breath, deep breath, one more. I look into those baby blues, see that smile twinkling up at me and steady myself. It will all be all right. This I can do. I AM A MOM!!! We get changed, we make dinner, he is calm and happy through the whole thing. My exhaustion fades away. Peter comes home. We all have dinner. J goes to bed. P and I make it through exactly 8 min of Prairie Home Companion before we are asleep. Another day done, another day.

I still can't figure out how to rotate pics on this thing, sorry folks!
Jonah, Peter, and I went to check out the local library. Jonah loved pulling all the books off the shelves, I didn't really love having to chase after him and re shelf everything but we all had a good time. I was surprised by the rather good music selection they had.

Yesterday I drove the minivan all by myself, without P in the car. Now for you long time drivers this my seem like no big deal but for someone who has only had their license for a little over 3 months this was no small feat. Its one thing to drive our little economy car but the van is whole different story.

Our new house, which we still love by the way, has baseboard heaters with no child guards and as you can imagine the inevitable J sticking his hand in the heater transpired and he got a nasty burn on his little finger. He will survive, I'm not sure about his parents.

He looks so different now that he has 2 bottom teeth. I am so used to seeing that adorable toothless ear to ear smile of his but now with teeth the thing is all different. Don't get me wrong he's still totally adorable he just looks more mature, or about as mature as a 10 1/2 month old can look.

The knitting is still going in full force and I will post a photo soon of my work in progress.

Friday is the day that the junk movers are coming to clear out all our moldy stuff from the old apt and take it to the dump. Its painful to think of all that is lost but I am so excited that it will all be gone soon. I feel tied still to all of that drama and I think once its all really gone I'll feel free. We are still dealing with litigation and all but at least we wont have all the actual STUFF hanging around. We wont still have 2 places. We will just have this one beautiful house that we get to live in for the time being and can let all the rest of it go. P and I are doing one last trip over to the old place tonight to get a few last things that can be cleaned and then I'll meet the movers on Friday, and Monday we will give in our keys and that will be that. Move on time is almost upon us.

teething, knitting, heating,

This is Jonah's new favorite teething toy!


The move is complete!!! Couldn't be happier!!! Jonah spouting 4 teath at once can't even dampen my mood.

Kara came on Saturday to help. She was amazing, on the phone most of the time coordinating relief in Haiti while carrying boxes and playing with Jonah. She is quite the multitasker!

We are only able to steal internet for a few hrs each night so P and I decided we have to invest. They are coming tomorrow to install and then we will be on whenever we want not the other way.

My new yrs resolutions were to find an organizational system that actually works for me and to learn to knit.

After we moved on Sat Kara, Peter, Jonah and I went to town to get lunch and walk around. After we ate at the wonderful Bayard house I spy a knitting/crafting store and make a B line. As we walk in P says "hey they have a class schedule" I look and no joke intro to knitting is being held the next day. So even though we are surrounded by boxes I spend my Sunday afternoon being taught to knit by Wendy Knitting teacher extraordinaire! And now I am a knitter!!!!! I am making a wrap to wrap Jonah and I in for those chilly night time nursings. I love it.

And in further crafting news I think the quilt, you know THE QUILT that I have been working on for 5 yrs is making its way to completion! I have to sew the 3 pieces together and find some fabric that I want to use for the other side and sew it all together. Light at the end of the tunnel my friends, light at the end of the tunnel.

Living in a house is fun, being from NY I've never lived in a house before. I can sit in the living room and look out at the water and I am content.

I am a total miser with the heat. But am getting used to wearing a light jacket and scarf around the house. If I start wearing my winter coat indoors like my father does feel free to have an intervention.
Jonah loves crawling up the stairs when we let him and having so much space.
Have gone for some wonderful walks by the canal. Watching the huge ships go by, listening to the birds.

Today Jonah and I were playing where's your nose? Then I'd point to his nose. Where's your hand? Then I'd point to his hand. When I got to where's your foot he grabbed his foot held it out and had a humongous smile on his face. He knew he knew. My child is brilliant, have I said that before? He knows what his foot is!!!!

we are moving today, moving moving moving today. thank goodness.

j went to bed at 7 last night, i went to bed at 7:30. then he decided that 5:30 was time for us to get up.
when i say i went to bed at 7:30 it would be much more accurate to say that i fell into bed, i had no choice my body just directed itself over to it and pushed me in, my brain all the while was listing the things left to do before we were done packing and cleaning and ready to move but as soon as my body hit the bed i was out.
who knows how long i would have slept had baby boy not gotten up.

things i will not miss about living here:
sleeping on an air mattress (my neck hasn't felt right the whole time)
not having a place to walk outside, unless you count the highway
not having an outside place for j to play, unless you count the highway
listening to the lady upstairs scream at her 4 yr old, calling her a bitch and even worse
having all our stuff destroyed by mold
being harassed by office workers over said mold
seeing drug deals go down in the parking lot
living in fear that this will be the time the drug addicts break into our place
having j overhear and see people having fights physical and verbal in the parking lot
seeing the cops arresting people in the parking lot

things i will miss about living here:



I hope I can finish up all the stuff still left before kara comes. i know she wont really care but i think its kinda rude to show up to help someone move and they aren't ready. and frankly i want to be done so i can just get the hell out of here. it makes me very sad to have to throw away such personally important stuff and i just want o put as much distance between me and it as possible. i threw out my 3 yr old birthday card from my grandma yesterday.
just get me out of here. let me put this as behind me as i can. i know the whole thing isn't over but i think some distance will help. i pray some distance will help.
i just think that i will feel better making new wonderful memories in our new wonderful house.

J spent hrs and I mean hrs yesterday walking with his little walker toy that i got for $5 at the wee sale. He would race across the floor then hit a door and look at me to turn him around. I think this went on for 3 hrs and started up again once peter came home from work. The pictures are at the top. I couldn't figure out how to rotate them or put them on the bottom of the post. sorry.

Apparently 2 teeth at once just wasn't good enough for my little man and he has decided to sprout a third. SO now he has 2 front teeth in process and a third breaking the surface. He went to sleep last night at 8 woke up at 10pm, 11:30, 2:30, and 5:30. then didn't go back to sleep till 8:30. we'll see how long this nap lasts. but I am on the edge.
its funny. i thought i was on the edge yesterday but then today came and it seems the edge is further away than i thought.
we are almost done with the whole move. peter and pete took over a bunch last night and tomorrow the final push should be manageable. hopefully kara will be able to come but she has been temporarily assigned to the haiti desk so we'll see. clearly whats going on there is more important.

j started playing with his walker toy and just wont stop. he loves that there is nothing on the floor so he can just go go go. he just can't turn around yet but we're working on it.
at 6 am the continual turning around of the toy was about to destroy me, i persevered.

let me just say though that if the management agent of this place tries to pull what she did yesterday or anything close to her harassing behavior i will lose my mind and she wants no part of that. wtf was is her deal??? she has serious problems and is taking them out on me.

i hear a little voice screaming MOMA very loudly. got to go!

movement on the move

I only have 2 types of tea right now. The move and all has curbed my tea buying. Now I love peppermint and green tea but a girl cannot live on 2 teas alone.

baby boy woke up at 5am nursed till 6, put him back to bed. he was talking in his crib as he does sometimes before he falls asleep. peter got up to go to the bathroom and as he walks past jonah's room a little voice starts calling out dada dada. so sweet, so cute, please baby boy go back to sleep.
he did, we did, and hr later he was back up.

after months of me worrying that maybe he'll never get teeth now he is getting his 2 bottom teeth at the same time. poor little guy. he is not a very happy camper.
when i got my wisdom teeth i got vicodin he gets teeth he only gets motrin. good thing he's too young to understand how unfair that is. not that i want to give him vicodin or anything. you should have seen him when they gave him the baby valium for his endoscopy. he was sooooo loopy. it was funny and scary and sad all at the same time.

peter and lou took 2 loads of stuff over to the new house last night. the stress headache has set in as it inevitably does at times like this, soon i'll have an eye twitch and finally a lip twitch and then the move will be complete. you would think i wouldn't go through this whole cycle seeing as we don't have that much to move but you would be wrong.
i have one maybe two more dish washer loads, have to wipe down with a bleach rag my cassette tapes (thats right tapes, and i will play them proudly in my minivan), wipe down my sewing machine and the rest of the electronics, taking the labels off cans of olives and such and wiping them down, doing one last sweep to make sure we have all of the stuff that can be saved, then pack up the few things in this apt, clean it, and we're done.
kara is kindly jetting over in her jetta on sat morn to help. and pete is coming over tonight to take a load of stuff over. tv, kitchen stuff, etc.

lazy baby

Jonah is teething and nursing like crazy. Yesterday he nursed 16 times. Had to go to the store and knew he would need a little something while there. I don't have a problem with nursing in public but there is no where to sit and nurse in the grocery store so I brought a bottle. He can hold his bottle but sometimes chooses not to. This clearly is one of those times. Peter thinks this shows he is a genius, I think this is crazy lazy. judge for yourself!

lets start with friday-
drove 3 hrs and bought a minivan. Am I still a new yorker if i own a minivan? of course i have lived in md for 2 yrs now so maybe the minivan is the least of my problems.
but its a lovely Plymouth voyager that i have decided to call "the rock" cause its a plymouth and all. i'm sure very few people who live around here will get the reference.

sunday went to sign our lease and get the keys for our new house. its wonderful and the thought of living there makes me happy. of course the thought of living almost any where but here makes me happy.
Peter and I spent the rest of the weekend cleaning, bleaching, and packing stuff from moldville.
we made a lot of progress but there is still more to do. I had a little dream that we would be done by sunday night. totally unrealistic I know and really setting myself up for disappointment but what else is new?

peter is going to bring some boxes over during the week but the big push is on saturday. we don't want to rent a moving truck this time so we are enlisting friends with vans and doing smaller trips to get it all done.

ok new topic-

i have a ratty old red sweatshirt that is worn in all the right places. i've had it forever. i look at it and see comfort. peter looks at it and sees a gross old sweatshirt that is ready for a new life as a rag. i see his point. and to be honest if it was his sweatshirt it would already be a rag. he got me a new sweatshirt to replace this one, its nice, nothing to complain about but i think he thought that with the new one coming in the old one should go out. i, however, already packed the new one. and need something to wear. we packed up a lot of clothes already and new yellow sweatshirt was among them.
this weekend my mil saw my old red sweatshirt and asked if she could buy me a new one. she was being nice having no idea the hornets nest she was walking into. so i give in, when your husband and mil both can't stand to look at your old duds i guess its time to re purpose. once we move and new yellow is unpacked old red will get a new life. i'm not sure i have it in me to use it as a rag but maybe a pillow for jonah's new room since it is so soft from yrs of wear and wash.

good things about new house-
-its near the water
-its a house
-i can have a garden
-j can go outside and play with ease
-space
-p can have an office/music room
-i can have an office/crafting room

not so great things about new house-
-landlord wants us to tell neighbors that we are cousins (she is Philippino so i'm not sure how that will work)
-furniture not so comfy so we are going to buy a couch
-thought we were going to be able to store stuff in attic, now told we can't

the pros clearly win but its good to be honest about the cons.
I can't wait. of course we will be tied to this place for the foreseeable future since we're suing them and all.

jonah has been such a champ through all of this. smiles all around, happy as can be. we are so blessed.

traffic isn't all its cracked up to b

baby up at 5. nurse diaper change back to sleep. Its 6 now and I'm still awake. my brain wont shut off. partly because its a snow day today!! partly cause i'm still not over yesterday.
Yesterday was one of those please let this day end, i'm not sure i can make it through, pray cry scream till its over day. to be fair all the things taken separately were not that bad but pile them all together and i almost lost my mind. got stuck in my first traffic jam. jonah didn't take a morning nap, then didn't take an afternoon nap, then we got stuck in traffic for 1 1/2 hrs in traffic right about his dinner time. he screamed for the entire 1 1/2 hrs. that throaty piercing baby scream that is like a dagger in a mommy's heart. i couldn't pull over, i couldn't will him to stop, i just kept telling him i loved him and that i was sorry this was happening. finally i see peter's school and think thank goodness this is almost over, peter can take over driving and i can sit in the back with j and nurse him and get him to calm down, a dog darts into the road, i slam on the breaks. it was scary, it shook me. it was late, dark, i was spent. but peter did take over and it all worked out.
the dr says j has "soft voice box" which may or may not cause him to have a weird voice when he grows up. at least we have a cause of this strange sound that he makes. but what constitutes a weird voice. its sort of a subjective thing isn't it? i tried googling soft voice box but couldn't find it and don't remember what the scientific name of it is. we have to go to another dr to make sure the white nodes on his voice box are ok but at least when people now hear him make that noise and as us "is your baby ok" we have an answer.
Why can't drs offices be faster? there is just no reason i should get out of the office at 4:30 when my appt started at 1:10. J wanted to crawl and play on the fl but i wouldn't let him cause of germs and all and it was a long afternoon of trying to distract him from his true desire.
then i got lost trying to leave baltimore. My previous decree of refusing to drive in baltimore till we got some sort of gps device should have been followed.

once he was finally fed and bed and p and i were fed i tried to relax but just couldn't shut off. I eventually collapsed into bed but now that i can go back to bed and am still incredibly tired i can't seem to go back. maybe its cause i know how much more there is to do before we move in 11 days. lots more to clean from moldy apt.
trying to buy a car for me. it looks like its going to be a mini van folks. hopefully we can take advantage of the snow day today and go get it. its a few hrs away but its a pretty good deal so its worth the trip. low milage, pretty good price, owned by a little old couple. i don't really know if they were little, you get my point though right?

heartbreaking cuteness

Things Jonah Learned over the Holidays:
1. Clap
2. High Five
3. Open and Close Doors

He said bath once while in the bath tub but it was only once.
He loves the bath. When ever he hears the water running he speed crawls over to the tub and pulls himself up on the ledge flailing his arms wildly. I love it.

This morning Jonah refused I mean really REFUSED to let go of Peter so he could go to work. His little fingers holding on to Peters shirt so tightly that his knuckles were white. I had to do some serious pulling to get him off. It was so sad. And now Jonah crawls over to the front door and bangs on it saying "Dada". He misses his daddy its adorable and heartbreaking all at the same time.

Still trying to decide what car to buy.

baby got bags

We are moving in 2 weeks. Thank goodness.
After being on vaca for a week and a half I had really left this place behind But walking in last night and hearing the upstairs neighbor screaming at her 4 yr old it just brought all the melancholy back.
But we are moving and Jonah will have grass to crawl in when its warm.

We wont have to go to walmart for everything. I hate walmart, I hate that there are no other stores in a 40 min radius due to walmart.

The new house is furnished which is great since we lost all our furniture. But last night we realized that we never tested the beds or any such thing so hopefully they will be comfortable but they have to be better than the air mattress we have currently right?

Jonah was super off his schedule over vaca. I always feel like the worst mom when he has bags under his eyes. 5 cousins and tons of aunts and uncles around proved weigh more interesting than taking a nap.

We got him the cutest little piano for christmas. Just think of a grand piano then shrink it. its adorable and he loves it.

Peter went back to work today. I miss him being home. I feel that there must be some gov grant that he can get so that we could afford for him to stay home.

I have to start cleaning all the things that are cleanable from the other apt. Bleach bath for 5 min. I probably wont have any skin left on my hands after this process.

Christmas was wonderful. 19 peeps at dinner. I love the insanity.

I think my resolution this yr is to develop some organizational skills. I always want to be organized but it never seems to happen. Maybe if I develop and stick to a plan it will work this time.