Sunday, July 31, 2011

Fun Weekend in NY

We went to NY for the weekend and, as the pictures below attest, Nicholas had a great time. He played so hard today that he was asleep less than 5 minutes into our drive home. Perfect.

Grandma Claire taught Nicholas how to make puppets:
From 2011 July

And everyone posed with the puppets:
From 2011 July

Grandpa Richard and Nicholas played "basketball":
From 2011 July
From 2011 July

And Nicholas was initiated into the joy of Rock Band:
From 2011 July

Here he is with the whole band (friends dating back from Joe's high school and college days) in the Bronx:
From 2011 July
Since they were doing Beatles Rock Band, does this make Nicholas Ringo?

Teresa helped him out with the guitar part:
From 2011 July

Just a sec, I need a thumb break:
From 2011 July

And then, while the rest of us sat at the table having brunch, Nicholas decided to put on a concert all by himself. We only caught the last half of the ABCs on video, but you get the point:
From 2011 July

Who needs a band?

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

School and Mommy Guilt

According to Nicholas' teacher he had "his best day yet" today. This was confirmed by the fact that when I arrived he was happy to see me but then wanted me to watch him play instead of going home. His teacher and I theorized a little about what may have made the difference, but decided to try repeating some of those things tomorrow and see how he does. Neither of us is convinced it wasn't a random fluke, but the fact that he could have such a good day there is a good sign.

I am not quite as optimistic about tomorrow now, though, given that he will be going in tired. He went to bed at normal time, but 45 minutes later he was crying pathetically to me and it took me an hour to get him back to silence. I have the feeling he didn't fall asleep at all in those first 45 minutes and so I'm just hoping he is really asleep now. But even if he is, that is 2 1/2 hours short of sleep.

When I went to him tonight he was so pathetic, just wanting me to hold him. As long as I was holding him, he was perfectly quiet and content, but if I tried to put him down he went absolutely ballistic. I tried all my tricks, including promising that I'd play with him in the morning before school. He finally agreed to lie down as long as I stayed in his room and held his hand. So I did that for a bit, while he lay there breaking my heart as he recited, "In morning play my dollhouse with my Mommy. But have to sleep first. After nap both play my dollhouse. My Mommy play my dollhouse." The exact words varied, but you get the idea.

Between that, the horrible dropoffs, and the fact that he has recently started begging me to watch him while he does everything, I am feeling some serious Mommy guilt. I haven't felt guilty like this about daycare since he first started a year and a half ago. I guess because I quickly learned that he was happier at his old school than he was with me. And that just doesn't seem to apply right now.

So is it the 6 weeks we spent together on a host of crazy adventures or is this school just not a good fit? And, either way, what do we do to fix this?

Wordless Wednesday: Captain of the Museum

From 2011 July

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

School Update

Apparently Nicholas' wonderful first few days of school lured us into a false hope for an easy transition. He has been having a really rough time for the past week or so. The drop-offs are awful, with him crying and clinging to me and begging me not to leave him. And when I get there to pick him up he is usually either in a teacher's arms or sitting by himself in a corner looking for me. It breaks my heart.

The reports from his teacher are that the bulk of the day he is mostly okay, although some days pretty clingy and "sensitive." She thinks the gym is the real problem because he gets really upset when it is time to go there. It is pretty loud and crazy in there, with a bunch of big kids and 20+ foot ceilings that make for lots of echos. But I think there might also be something more. Thinking back, the first time I picked him up to find him really upset, his teacher said Nicholas had tried to get into one of the cars and another kid yelled at him. At the time it seemed like a random isolated event, but I wonder if it upset him more than I realized.

Today I waited to drop him off until 9 so he didn't have to go to the gym in the morning and while it was a little better, he was still pretty upset. I'll do the same tomorrow and see what happens. I feel bad for the little boy. And guilty. He is still excited about going to school (at least until we walk into the door), which is a good sign, but he is not nearly as comfortable there as he was at his old school.

Monday, July 25, 2011

Let Us Know If You Need Us

A bit of a variation on the theme of my post from last week, in which Nicholas was learning the answers to a group of questions.

This afternoon, we picked Nicholas up early from school and headed out to western Massachusetts to visit with some friends. We'd planned it so that we'd pick him up from lunch and he'd nap on the ninety-minute ride.

As usual, he had other plans. We tried to ignore him, but he pulled out all the stops to try to get our attention and help him stay awake. He repeated "mommy ... mommy ... mommy ..." He talked about where we were going.

And then he started asking himself questions and answering them.

Put another check next to the things he doesn't need us for anymore.

Sunday, July 24, 2011

Nicholas' Concert

Somewhere there is a VHS tape floating aroung of Joe's famous rendition of "Twinkle Twinkle" in preschool.

Well, I think Nicholas has him beat:
From 2011 July


Although admittedly Nicholas doesn't have the stage presence to perform in front of a crowd. Put on the spot with other people, he would just smile and giggle before turning to bury himself in my shirt.

Mastering the Art of Misdirection

Nicholas has gotten very good in the last few weeks at learning and memorizing the answers to a pretty broad range of factual questions, including both the practical and the, well, historical. For example, he now knows the answers to the following:

  • Where does Mommy work?
  • Where does Daddy work?
  • In what state do we live?
  • Where do Grandma and Grandpa live? (He sometimes mixes up the two states, but he usually has one or the other)
  • A whole list of animal sounds, though at this point in a toddler's life that almost goes without saying.
  • What does Uncle Brian say?
  • Who is the President?
  • Where does the President live?
  • Who was the first President? (Okay, he occasionally just hears they keyword "President" and says "Obama," but if you call him on it he'll get to the right answer.)
He's also, however, learning how to play an audience. Yesterday we had a chance to see our friends Dave, Jess, and Sara, and Nicholas has a blast. But when we tried to show off his new skills, he at first seemed shy. Once he'd answered a few, though, and seen the reaction he could get, he started to give bad answers intentionally to get a reaction. So you'd get exchanges like this:

Us: "In what state do we live?"
N: "New York. . . . Noooooooo!"
Us: *laughter*

The root of the misdirection comes from a game we've played in the car some to kill time, most frequently with animal sounds (i.e., "Does a chicken say 'moo?'" "Noooo..." "Does a frog say 'moo?'" "Noooo...." etc.). But yesterday he clearly understood that he had an audience and could get a positive reaction from them by, well, messing with them.

You can understand, therefore, why I'm so proud.

Friday, July 22, 2011

"I Play My Dollhouse"

My office does not have air conditioning and the window only opens about 3 or 4 inches. Most days it has been hot, but tolerable. I have figured out 3 tricks for making it work: keep the blinds down and the lights off, never have the computer on for more than 10 minutes at a time, and buy a large decaf iced mocha on my way to work each morning to keep me cool almost to lunchtime. This does limit the types of work I can do effectively, but I have lots of reading to do, so it has been okay so far.

But this recent heat wave has just been too much. Today I didn't even go in at all. Yesterday I made it until 2 and then gave up and went shopping before taking Nicholas swimming.

On my errands I ran across a store that sells used kids' stuff and after lots and lots of walking the aisles and obsessing, I bought Nicholas a dollhouse and a zoo with keys to unlock each animal's cage. All my overthinking and debating paid off because he loves them both.

The zoo (or "farm keys," as he keeps calling it) is still a little too difficult for him and when he gets too frustrated I have to suggest that he play with something else for a bit. But he really likes the idea of it, since he is really into using keys right now and he is always drawn to toys that involve a challenge.

And he loves the dollhouse! I knew he would like all the pieces that you can push to make noise, because that was his favorite part of Alice's dollhouse. But my hope that having the dollhouse would encourage him to do more imaginative play (which he has been making steps towards, but isn't at a point yet where he can do it without ready-made props as starting points) has come true much more quickly than I hoped. According to his narrations, he has been putting the "baby" to bed, having the baby sit on the potty, and taking the babies outside the door because they like going outside.
From 2011 July
From 2011 July


This is definitely his new favorite toy.

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

School and Sentences

Nicholas is having a blast at his new school and starting to make friends. How do I know this? Because he tells me all about it on our drives home, and in increasingly complex sentences. Seriously, this child's language is out of control. (His talking is also so incessant that Joe tried the quiet game this evening. 10 seconds was the longest Nicholas could go. What can I say, he is my child.)

Sample from our car ride home today:
"I have a orange shirt. Zoie has a orange shirt too. Both have orange shirts. I'm going school tomorrow. Go in my classroom and say, 'Hi, Zoie. Let's go play!"

Nicholas was indeed wearing an orange shirt today. When I asked if Zoie was wearing an orange shirt in response to this little monologue, he replied, "Yes. Both have orange shirt."

He is getting really good at pronouns, especially the possessive my, your, and our. He also properly uses me, you, this, and that, although he hasn't yet figured out he and she. He has also gotten adept at using "all" and "both." In the past couple days he has added in pretty good use of "too." He is starting to catch on to when to use "ing" as a verb ending. And he has just started stringing together long chains.

Another example from tonight:
Joe: "Nicholas, do you want to go get the mail."
Nicholas (jumping up): "Bye bye, Mommy. I'm going downstairs with my daddy get the mail. Be right back upstairs." (The overuse of the possessive "my," especially in reference to us is a common thing right now, and sort of cute, I think.)

He then apparently chattered the whole way down and back up. The quiet game started a couple minutes later.

I was a little worried since he is one of the oldest in his class and when we were there a lot of the kids seemed not to talk much. But he has made another language jump in the week he has been there, so it isn't hurting him. And his teacher says he is constantly amusing them with the things he says. They already are smitten with him and I love to see it.

Saturday, July 16, 2011

Franklin Park Zoo

We gave Nicholas a very special treat today--we took him to the zoo! He was psyched to go and had a great time.

The coolest thing from the zoo (in my opinion) was that we stumbled upon a birthday party for the lion. The zookeepers got him into his pen and then brought out a "cake" made, I kid you not, of frozen blood. I mean, really, what more could you want on a hot summer day. And, as you can see, the lion liked it better than chocolate.
From 2011 July


Nicholas' funniest moments didn't really translate well to camera. He and Joe did their giraffe impressions by the giraffes:
From 2011 July

Basically this involves a very solemn face, chin up, and looking back and forth. It is pretty hilarious.

The other funny display I didn't even try to get a picture of, because the funny part was inherently the motion. We saw a tree kangaroo, who was most definitely not jumping, and as soon as Nicholas heard the word "kangaroo," he squirmed out of my arms to get down and spent the next few minutes saying, "Kangaroos say boing boing," with a very deliberate jump for each "boing." And he found this as hilarious as we did.

In general, it was a good zoo and cool to see once, but nothing phenomenal and so I doubt we'll do the drive to go there again.
From 2011 July
There are a few smaller zoos that don't require driving through Boston that we'll check out as alternatives. But, really, we were just spoiled by our zoo in Baltimore.

Friday, July 15, 2011

Back in Action

I didn't want to post until we knew Nicholas had made it through the whole day without incident, but Nicholas went back to school today and other than being exhausted by dinner at 6pm, there was no sign he had ever been sick.

He was basically himself most of yesterday, although a little warm (not enough to even bother taking his temperature, let alone giving him medicine) and tiring easily. We let him watch a lot of tv because that was the only way to get this go-go-go child to actually rest, and had to fend off multiple requests to go play with his "friends at school."

He did only a 9-4 day at school today to cut out 2 of the 3 more physically taxing periods, but he did well and is loving school more and more each day. Tonight he was already asking whether he could go to school tomorrow.

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

At Least We Made It 2 Days

On Friday when we went to visit Nicholas' new school, Joe noticed that some of the kids had runny noses and commented, "you know, Nicholas hasn't been sick in two months." And, sure enough, after 2 days of school I got a phone call at 10:30 this morning that Nicholas had a fever and needed to come home. Of course.

He has had a pretty high fever and spent most of the day watching tv or sleeping. This meant I also spent my day watching Barney and sleeping on his floor because he needed Mommy next to him at all points. But he was a great eater at dinner and is now sitting playing happily on the floor with Joe, so even if the fever is only reduced with the help of Motrin, it is an encouraging sign.

So much for our much-anticipated full week of work and school. But as long as it isn't anything serious, I'll just roll my eyes and move on.

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

He'll Repeat Anything . . . Just About

Nicholas will repeat just about anything you say if you ask him to. Or at least he'll give it a good try, which leads us to ask him to say things like "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" just for our own amusement.

Tonight after his bath, Joe brought him over to do "Boo Mommy," our standard post-bath game, where Nicholas, wrapped in a towel fresh from his bath, comes over and surprises the person doing dishes. After 3 rounds of this Joe prompted him to say, "I love you Mommy," which he diligently repeated. Followed by "Bye, Mommy, I'm going to get my pajamas on." Followed by a couple other phrases. Then Joe tried, "Daddy is the smartest person in the world." And instead of promptly repeating the phrase, Nicholas looked at Joe and broke into laughter.

Priceless.

Monday, July 11, 2011

First Day of (New) School

Nicholas' first day of school was today and it went beautifully. According to his teacher, he had a great day and there wasn't a single tear. She didn't even have to reassure him at any point that we'd be back. Go Nicholas!

He was excited this morning about going to school, but started to have second thoughts when we actually arrived. We only made it about 4 steps inside the door before he started pleading for me to carry him (which I've started to figure out is a sign that he wants a little physical contact and in many situations I now offer him a hug instead, which he is happy to accept and then walk himself). I convinced him to hold my hand instead and we walked down the hallway to put his lunchbox in his classroom.

Then off to the gym, where the drop-off was helped by the fact that the teacher who runs the early arrivals in the gym (where they go if they arrive before classroom time starts at 9) is one of his teachers and the one he connected most with on Friday. Also, there was a basketball hoop. Miss Danielle greeted him enthusiastically, I knelt down, reminded him we'd be back after school, and then asked him if he wanted to go play basketball and took a couple steps back. His teacher took the hint (I really like her) and suggested he come with her to find a basketball. He looked at us with concern, seeming to debate whether to go play or come running back to us. We smiled and waved, and he walked off with her, not looking back. And we hightailed it out of there.

Fast forward 7 hours later. We picked him up early and he greeted us with a smile and then, "more school." He was pleased to see us, but not relieved or excited and had no desire to leave. It was great! He was okay with leaving when we reassured him that he was coming back tomorrow. (However, he then did break my heart a bit when he asked hopefully if we were going to Alice's house. He is right that often when we picked him up early from school in MD it was because we had plans with Alice. Poor boy. I took him to the pool when we got home, in part I think to ease my own guilt.)

We had picked him up early intentionally to ease him back into school and into the new school in particular. My thought was in part to have shorter schooldays at first, but even more to make sure we left plenty of time after school for quality time with Mommy and Daddy so he didn't feel abandoned. And I still think the latter has merit, but the rest of the week I think we'll aim for a 4:30 pickup instead of the 3:30 we did today. Then again, tomorrow we're going to get new drivers' licenses and license plates, so the efficiency of the RMV will determine what time we go get him.

In terms of the substance of the day, the hour they spent outside was by far his favorite. In addition to standard playground time, they got to splash around in a water table, get messy jumping in a mud puddle, and then wash off with a hose or sprinkler or something. By the end of the summer I have the feeling our clean and cautious little boy may have developed a love for dirt.

Sunday, July 10, 2011

Photoblogging--First Week in MA

As a special Sunday treat, I've decided to take the day off from unpacking and getting the house set up in general. (Well, except for the inevitable daily trip to Target.) And so I uploaded pictures and sat down to write a blog post about the last week and a half. The only problem is that I am really tired and my memory is pretty fuzzy. So I will use the pictures to guide my narrative. In other words, if we don't have pictures of it, it didn't happen.

The three of us spent the week around the apartment, trying to get the house (and our life) in order. This involved what seemed like a few dozen trips out to Target and Home Depot to buy shelving units and other storage containers to replace all the built in storage in our old apartment (as well as the microwave, also built in at the old place). This was a frustrating process, but now that it is done (or almost done), the place is starting to come together. Most of the boxes are unpacked and yesterday when Joe's parents came up to spend the morning with Nicholas, we even managed to get a lot of the pictures up on the wall.

I asked Nicholas if he wanted his animal curtains from his nursery in MD up or if he wanted something new. He decided that he wanted red fire trucks on his curtains. So off we went to the fabric store and I was a little anxious about whether we'd find something that met his specifications. Pretty quickly I found some fire truck fabric, although I didn't like it very much. But before too much longer I found the winner. And this is the result:
From 2011 July

If you look closely you can see that in addition to the fire trucks there are cars and trains, which Nicholas was happy with. I found a red that would have matched perfectly for the curtains themselves, but with the red table in the middle of his room, it just seemed like that might be overkill. I'm not sure now, but I'm certainly not re-doing them. So here is his room from the doorway:
From 2011 July

His crib is on the wall on the right in this picture, with his animal quilt over it.

We have done a few Nicholas-centered activities, such as taking him to play on the nearby elementary school playground:
From 2011 July
From 2011 July

And going to a nearby nature center/zoo/science museum that was overrun with camp groups and where Nicholas' favorite part was the bubbles, which we could have done in our yard for $1:
From 2011 July
From 2011 July

Okay, we couldn't have made those bubbles, but you get my point.

We've also made him corn on the cob, his favorite, a couple of times:
From 2011 July
From 2011 July

On a side note, he will sometimes break into songs of "I love corn," a little song he made up. Can you guess what the one line is?)

But after my parents left, he only has gotten to go swimming once, when we took him to the pool in our complex for the Fourth of July:
From 2011 July

He loves the pool so much, but it is just so much work to get us ready, do all the sunscreen, clean up suits afterwards. I am way too lazy to deal with it. My parents were much nicer to him, taking him swimming every day they were here.

Mostly Nicholas has spent the week entertaining himself in often hilarious ways. He spent hours walking around in my flip flops and sunglasses
From 2011 July

and has long pretend phone conversations any time Joe or I accidentally leave a phone within his reach
From 2011 July


And today when Joe was watching soccer, Nicholas wanted to play soccer and after I got bored kicking the ball back and forth with him, I created a "goal" out of an empty diaper box, which entertained him for awhile.
From 2011 July

He then started rolling around on the ground and declared that "soccer guys" rolled on the floor. Apparently that is what he picked up from watching World Cup soccer--the injuries and fake injuries.
From 2011 July

Also in that picture, you can see the progress we are making in the apartment, with pictures on my pretty green wall and a clear hallway.

Tomorrow we start into what hopefully will be a real routine. I think we're all ready.

Gender Norms Are Dumb

Yesterday Nicholas made his first visit to an American Girl store and had a good time. We didn't go to the mall aiming for the American Girl store, but my parents (and Uncle Patrick!) were visiting this weekend, and there's a long-running inside family joke that led us to stop by on our way out of dinner (it's a long story and not very interesting).

The American Girl store is a store full of dolls, doll accessories, doll clothes, and a "bistro" that includes booster seats for, yep, your doll. In other words, it's coded as a feminine space. Everything is pinkness and aimed at little girls. That also means that it throws the rhythm of the place just a little bit to have a boy walk in.

Nicholas, however, is 2, and so is completely immune for now to the cultural indicators about what he's "supposed" to like and not. Now, he asked for (and got!) fire trucks on the curtains in his new room, and loves airplanes and sports and all sorts of "boy" things. But he doesn't yet know that dolls are for girls. Or rather, that society has decided they are.

So he just plopped down and started playing with two little girls in the store when we got to the play area, and it's clear that playing with dolls is really good for him. He was working on a whole set of skills that he doesn't get much practice with while trying to feed one of the dolls a bottle, get it to sit in a chair, and push it around in a stroller. Now, he was a bit rougher with the dolls than the girls were—he would pick it up by the ponytail, or fling it around by a shirt collar—but overall he had a good sense of what to do (thank you, Alice!) and what he didn't was willing to learn.

And in the meantime I'm standing there watching him thinking that he's learning, and he's having fun. So who cares whether the toys are meant for him or not? (Though I will admit that so much pink in one room is a bit of an eyesore, literally.)

Then, as I started working on this post, I put on the women's World Cup quarterfinal between the US and Brazil.  Nicholas noticed, of course, and said, "playing soccer." Then he wanted to play soccer, so Sarah found a ball and passed it around with him in our "hallway." I'm not going to make an empowerment claim or anything, but he again didn't care, or notice, who was playing. And I guess I hope he never really does notice.

Thursday, July 7, 2011

School is Cool!

We're pretty sure Nicholas is sick of us.

On Monday, he starts at his new daycare center, the first time he'll be in school since his birthday in May. Tomorrow (i.e., Friday) we're going to take him over for an hour to get acclimated and meet his teachers and classmates, as well as to turn in some forms. So tonight at dinner we started laying the groundwork, telling him where we'd be going, that he'd meet his teachers and the "new kids," that his school has lots of toys and he'll get to play with them, and that he'll get to play in the water.

The boy went to bed as if it was Christmas Eve. He's that excited. He couldn't stop talking about school at dinner, with a glint in his eye that says that he's ready and eager to go. And it took him a while to fall asleep tonight, as we could hear him telling himself stories about school through the baby monitor.

We hope that the reality tomorrow matches his expectations today, though I must say, it's going to be tough.

We're Back

Our internet blackout is over, so I figured I should check in and let you all know how things are going. We are mostly unpacked, although there are still probably a dozen boxes around the apartment, mostly things that go in storage containers we have not yet bought or assembled.

Nicholas has accepted that this is now home and absolutely loves his new room. The past week has been difficult for him, though, because there is stuff everywhere that he is curious about but gets in trouble for touching. It is just impossible to have a child-proof living environment while unpacking. Slowly but surely, however, it is getting better. And we have tried to do fun Nicholas-centered activities (pool, playground, library, science museum) in between the unpacking and a couple dozen trips to Target. I'll post pictures once I get my computer set up.

For now, however, I should go back to working on curtains during this naptime.

Saturday, July 2, 2011

The Move

Despite the fact that we are still sleeping in a hotel, we are essentially moved in. Not unpacked, but the apartment is now liveable. We weren't sure how long we'd need to make it a safe space for Nicholas, so we had booked the hotel through tonight. It turns out we could have gone back tonight, but this has worked out well. And since tonight is the last time we'll have reliable access to internet until Thursday (when ours is installed), I figured I should post a quick update.

Nicholas has done really well with the moving process, mostly because my parents have been with him for most of it, keeping him out of the way as well as isolated from the worst of our craziness. And providing him with a lot of fun treats along the way. Not like ice cream and cotton candy treats; more like the chance to go swimming every single day. For Nicholas this is actually a much bigger treat.

Nicholas has spent large chunks of time with one or both of my parents while Joe and I took care of moving-related business, and while he loves my parents the continual abandonments have made him pretty clingy. Each night he needs reassurance that we'll sleep right nearby and then still screams when we leave to go do a few more hours of work at the apartment before going to bed.

But we have done a couple fun activities with all of us. We were going to try to go up to Lexington and Concord on Friday, but in the interest of time went for a short hike at the nearby reservoir instead. Nicholas wasn't too keen on the hike, only making it through by resorting to singing "Itsy Bitsy Spider" on an endless loop.
From 2011 July
At least he varied the tempo, with he and Joe deciding that this would be a fast one or a slow one and following through. Interestingly, fast also correlates to loud for Nicholas and slow to soft. But the highlight of the hike was when we stumbled upon this beautiful little outcropping with a gorgeous view.
From 2011 July
And more importantly from Nicholas' point of view, lots of rocks to skip (or in his case, throw into the water).
From 2011 July


I don't even want to contemplate how Joe and I would have managed the move without my parents' help, but Nicholas definitely would have fared far worse. They leave in the morning and we'll all move into the new apartment full time--that should be an adventure.

As far as the idea of moving itself, I'm not sure if Nicholas gets it or not. He refers to the new apartment as just that and recognizes when we get close that that is where we are going. And he hasn't asked to go "home" since we got here, I don't think. So maybe he gets it. But I'm really not sure.

He certainly loves his new room, though. He was excited from the first day to label it Nicholas' room and when he came back after the movers arrived he started walking around saying "my stuff in my room." My mom tried to help him unpack his boxes of toys today and while he was excited to see all his toys, he had no interest in the idea of unpacking. He was happy to see the old familiar stuff, but then quickly gravitated towards the new things. Now that his room is so much bigger, we've been able to add a couple of the larger items. We finally opened the easel he got as a birthday present from an aunt and uncle:
From 2011 July

And my mom repainted the little table my grandfather made me when I was Nicholas' age.
From 2011 July

It is the perfect height for him and he loves that he can get on and off of the benches by himself.

Obviously his room is still a work in progress, but you can see the ways in which it is a hybrid of his nursery and a new big boy room.
From 2011 July
And he is obviously very comfortable in it. I'm just hoping that comfort translates into some good sleep tomorrow when we move in completely.

In other moving related news, the two big things worth noting is that we had a saga with getting the carpet replaced before the movers arrived, and I painted a wall in the living room. When we arrived the apartment smelled like dog and had the carpet had some gross looking stains. After I walked outside and sat in the grass for a little while crying, Joe called the management and they agreed to replace it. The only problem is that it was late afternoon and our stuff was scheduled to arrive the next morning. Thanks to some flexibility on the part of both the carpet guy and the movers, it all worked out, but it was a little tense for a bit.

We'll let you know how the rest of the move in goes once we have internet. But so far, so good. Knock on wood.