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.