I can wear size 10 pants again! Not that I wouldn't like to drop another couple of sizes, but it is a great start to be down that far in two months. Breastfeeding is a wonderful thing for so many reasons.
I got down that last size or two via two stomach flus. I don't recommend this method, but I must say it was quite effective.
We are currently visiting with my brothers-in-law, one of whom can't stop mentioning every time he sees a picture of me with the newborn Squid, "Wow, Jordana, you've lost a lot of weight!" Um, thanks!
The Baby Boy's big sisters are trying their hardest to give him a complex before he even learns to crawl. They routinely come in during diaper changes and comment on his "cute, little p----!" They think everything about him is fascinating.
The other day, the four year old again came in to observe a diaper change and this time she asked, "What's that big thing under his p----?" I told her the proper name for that particular body part, but she was skeptical. She asked if her big brother also had them. And then she asked if her dad did. I wanted to stop pursuing this line of questioning, so I informed her that all boys did.
"Really? Does our dog have them too?"
"Uh. Um. Well, he used to."
"What happened to them?"
This continued on through an explanation about our not wanting him to make puppies and that the vet did the procedure.
I just hope that next time she's mad at her brother, she doesn't suggest we take him to the vet.
My two year old girl's favorite word is "Why?", as in "Why are you ____ ?" She will often have follow-up why's, but that's OK. Her smiles make up for any potential aggravation.
You may need to hold off on having your 4 year old see "The Nativity Story" (not that you have time or energy to take the whole crew to the movies right now!). They do have a circumcision scene, and while the actual cutting is off-screen, it was still painful to watch. I can just imagine the questions she would ask out loud during the movie.
when my daughter was born my son who was 2 at the time kept commenting on her "little butt" and wanted to know why she had a front butt and back butt. It cracked me up every time.
We have endless discussions about who has one and who doesn't. Max has been know to loudly and proudly announce that he has one and Rebecca is very upset that she doesn't.
posted by Janis Gore at December 30, 2006 10:43 AM
when my daugter was born, her brothers, 4 & 8 noticed the first time they saw me change her diaper- that she was "different". they pointed to her genital area and said- what's that? being caught off guard, i said that's her vagina. "Vagina?" they screamed. vagina ! vagina ! vagina wyna! they ran through the house singing this at the top of their lungs!
ROTFLMBO
been there had this talk a few different times LOL.. oh and the talk about the vet and the dog we had that one too only with the cat, and then it went into the long talk about why we had the cat fixed and why we didn't want kitten, which lead into "but mom if the cat doesn't get married it can't have kittens" LOL.
Yesterday was my ninth wedding anniversary. We'll have to celebrate later. For the record, we currently have one bronchial infection, one UTI, three on and off fevers and lots of snotty noses.
O dear, how very miserable. I will mentally distribute said ailments amongst all of you and hope that your snotty nose clears up before your husband's UTI, but mainly that the kids take good care of you until all is well.
As in "on dasher, on cancer, on prancer and vixen?
Oh my. Well, at least she doesn't know what a vixen is.
This actually reminds me of a friend of mine who was raised by hippie parents. One day, his mother announced that he was going to be a vegetarian. His response (in all childhood seriousness) was "how can I be a vegetarian when I'm all ready a sagittarius?"
And there is this thing called Christmas coming up...
It's keeping me busy and I'm not even the one playing general contractor.
We closed on the house on Monday, December 11. On Wednesday, we had the porch roof ripped off and met with a fencing contractor.
On Friday the HVAC guys started redoing all the ductwork. Also on Friday, we had a dumpster dropped off in the backyard at the new house. Also on Friday, my parents arrived with two van loads of stuff, including, but not limited to, a clawfoot tub, a dishwasher, a sofa, and a four poster bed. Also on Friday, we had to go to my husband's office Christmas party, which is a fun family affair with good food and lots of silliness.
On Saturday we (including my parents) all got up, dragged ourselves over to the new house and spent the whole day filling up the dumpster by clearing the piles of scrap wood filled with nails, trash, nasty underwear and other garbage from the backyard and garage. My mother also started in on the attic.
On Sunday, after church my parents and Justin worked on the attic and the backyard some more. Throwing away peed on mattresses left in the attic and much of the "insulation" (aka newspapers) left up there as well. The dumpster was full.
On Monday, I had to take the littlest to the doctor for his two month checkup. Justin took the day off from work and spent the whole day working on cleaning the attic. The first dumpster was hauled off and a new one was brought in its place. I watched kids, trimmed a tree and met with the guys who built the cabinets in the kitchen and whom we hope will finish the job now that it's under new management. Unsurprisingly for Nashville, they are country music singers as well as carpenters. Justin also met with a fellow who does a lot of the lawn care in the neighborhood and signed him up to clear the part of the backyard affectionately (or not) known as "the jungle." The guy told us it would really help with the snakes in the summer. That made me really happy.
On Tuesday, the yard guy started clearing brush and the HVAC guys finished all the ductwork and installed a new upstairs unit.
Today, the electricians began their work removing old ragwire and knob and tube. I baked cookies so we'd have a present for the kids swimming teacher, went shopping for Justin's secretary (I knew I had forgotten someone!) and bought an oven for the new kitchen. The credit card company thought my card had been stolen with all the shopping and made me wait at the appliance store for about 20 minutes while they verified my information over and over again. I was glad they were looking out for me, but it made us late for swimming. And since I had been up baking cookies at 7 this morning, I wasn't about to miss the chance to give them away.
And this evening? We have Bible class and I have to get over to the other house so I can mark all the places I want the electricians to put in lovely new outlets.
oh my...and I thought our life was busy with two houses, projects looming everywhere, 4 kids, Christmas, etc. I am amazed with y'all... esp considering our baby is a good year older than your tiny guy! our craziness doesn't come close to yours...but I sympathize, truly!!! just out of curiosity (we hope to replace ours sometime in the near future!) what oven did you choose? hang in there with everything, and hope you get to enjoy some downtime this Christmas!
She is just 30, Francesca. Or 31. Same difference.
And she doesn't have teenagers. Yet.
And I'll second the question on the oven. I hope it wasn't a Jenn-air. Everyone I know is having problems with those.
posted by Janis Gore at December 21, 2006 11:29 AM
I live for all the praise, but I'm not so amazing. Justin is doing all the hard work. Mostly, I'm just watching the kiddos and keeping them out of everyone's hair.
As for the oven, it is a Kenmore. I bought it at the Sears Scratch and Dent store in town. It's brand new and I couldn't find a scratch or dent on it, but it was about half price. We are going to have a gas Jen-Aire cooktop though. I hope it doesn't have problems. We'll see though, I guess.
No, it isn't snowing here. I think we have a predicted high of 60 degrees today. However, one of my son's favorite Christmas projects and something we have done together every year since he was semi-able to handle scissors, is to make a snow flurry of paper snowflakes.
There are directions all over the web for folding the paper. Once that's done, we go to town, cutting and snipping and making a big mess to be swept up later.
To flatten out the snowflakes after they are all cut out, I iron them on the lowest setting on my iron that steams (I think it is "wool"). After that we either punch a hole in them and hang them some place, or I use a bit of double-stick tape to tape them to the windows. After the holidays, we can throw them away and start fresh the next year.
That would have been fun out in Texas. I think I saw one white Christmas in my years there.
No one thought of it. Good on ya.
posted by Janis Gore at December 16, 2006 06:44 PM
jordana, love the snowflakes, but what I like even better are those snowmen. They are really sweet and I say that in all seriousness. Thanks for sharing them.
Have a great Christmas!
On December 15, 1864, the Battle of Nashville was fought on the land where my current house now stands. The Battle of Nashville was the final death knell for the Confederate Army, and it wasn't long until the war was finally over.
The current battle monument is located just down the street and our neighbor one street over from us found a Confederate cannon ball while digging in her garden.
To clarify my entry from yesterday, the first estimate we got several months ago was from a fellow no longer with that particular HVAC company, primarily because he was low-balling every estimate. The previous owner had had an incredibly cheap and crummy HVAC job done and so really nothing should have surprised me -- we already knew it was substandard equipment and that it hadn't been properly installed.
Since we had gotten an estimate though, I was a bit shocked to find out just how much more the real costs would run. The worst case scenario was having to replace everything. It seems that that is not going to be necessary. However, we will have to put in new ducts and a new unit upstairs, since that stuff all has mold in it. We have better estimates now and the price, while much worse than we thought, is not as bad as we feared.
Some things are really clicking faster than we could have hoped. Our roofer came over this morning and his men have been busy tearing off the porch roof -- all three layers of which were rotten. We'll be getting a new metal roof next week. Next week the electricians are supposed to begin their work and if the weather is good we might get a fence to hold in the dog and the kidlets the week between Christmas and New Year's.
While this doesn't take care of all the things I would like to have done before we move, it will make a big dent in the list.
The previous owner ran out of money mid-way through the kitchen renovation. After we get through doing all the fundamentals that the previous owner neglected to work on, I hope we can get the kitchen finished up. I'd love to have it finished before we move in, but I begin to suspect that I'll be using my electric skillet, microwave and crockpot a lot for the first month.
On two houses we have purchased in the past, we found out during the closings the owners were near or had gone through bankruptcy. Realtors will never mention that until at or after the closing for fear of losing the deal.
It makes your heart sink once you hear about it, since it means they did not have the money to maintain (let alone improve) the house properly. Well, that's what house inspectors are for, it's just a matter of finding a good inspector.
Prior to one closing we agreed to let the dog (at least 7 y.o.) stay, since he seemed to be "part" of the farmhouse. When we asked about the dog's vet at the closing, they told us "Oh, we never took him to the vet - we just took care of him ourselves." Takes all kinds.
As much as you tell yourself that things will cost more than you expect and you know you are getting yourself into a heap of trouble, I still wasn't expecting our revised HVAC estimate to be seven times the first estimate. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.
Today we close on the money pit. The house we live in now has been pretty easy on us and this one won't be. I'm looking forward to the space and the prettiness, but I'm just a little scared.
Very nice. Good luck with the closing - they can be nerve-wracking. It didn't look like the previous occupants had small children. The stairs/hallway has traffic-jam potential.
Now that you have shown some before pictures I hope you have the chance to show some after pictures of the kitchen. A newly redone kitchen to move into would be a treat.
Congratulations. I definitely want to see after pictures, to see Jordana's artistic hand in making this your house. You have a lot of very nice features with which to work.
posted by Earth Girl at December 11, 2006 01:25 PM
I like the paint colors.
Did they show the house with that much stuff around?
I have to wonder what got into them to paint that ceiling black. Is there something hidden up there?
posted by Janis Gore at December 12, 2006 09:48 AM
I like a lot of the paint colors, but not the black ceiling so much. It doesn't seem to be hiding anything, Janis. The former owner just went about everything backwards and had a custom paint job done on several of the rooms, without worrying about incidentals like the whole house needing to be rewired.
And yes, she showed the house with stuff lying around everywhere. Some how it got emptied by closing. Except for the garage. We won't speak of it right now though.
Won't let me post in the actual post because my content is "questionable", though I have no idea what that may be.
Only seven times the first estimate. Wow.
How did that happen?
Actually, thinking back on some of our money-pit-house estimates. Yeah, it can be scary how that happens... we learned to a) get at least three opinions, b) and talk to someone who knows what it is all about so you can get a true picture of what it all means... and I hope you love your money-pit as much as I do mine!
This morning, the two year old asked for some "egg knock" to drink and then with her upper lip dripping, she smiled at me and asked, "Do you like my musk ox?"
Way to go! You know not to trust the MS Grammar Check and you know "no" from "know." Now, go forth and spread the good word (or at least, the proper use of apostrophes).
We have a lot of books. A lot of books. Since we're moving, I've been packing books. I can't pack them all right now, but I have to pack enough of them to make our house look less cluttered. I haven't finished packing books yet and have already filled over ten boxes. One begins to wonder whether the family love affair with books is a good idea when one packs and carries these boxes.
Along with the high brow reading material contained within some of these boxes, I also filled one entire box with our Tintin, Asterix, Calvin and Hobbes, and Bloom County collection. I can't believe we own that many comic books or as many books of any kind as we do, and yet as I pack them and look through all of them, there are very few I sort out to send to Goodwill and even fewer once my husband puts back in all of his books.
We're collecting them as we find them and liquor boxes are some of our favorites for books and, when they come with the bottle inserts, they work very well for glassware and dishes.
"To be a book-collector is to combine the worst characteristics of a dope fiend with those of a miser." Robertson Davies, "The Table Talk of Samuel Marchbanks"
We briefly considered moving last fall, but perhaps it was the idea of moving the books that changed our minds. When the five kids divided Mom's estate, we all came home with boxes of books which we cherish. So think of it as your children's legacy, in more ways than one. (Cardinal Newman-love that picture!)
When we bought our house four years ago, we moved 22 boxes of books. I swore then that I would weed them out, but here we sit more than we've ever had before.
Books have long been my friends. After the Great Book Purge of the spring of '06, my shelves are no longer stacked two and three deep - I feel deprived.
The love of reading you are passing to your children is one of the best things you could ever teach them. So don't feel guilty about keeping *all* the books.
Just hire the local high school football team to move them for you.
Some of the best memories that I have are of curling up with a book on a rainy afternoon or hiding a flashlight and a book to read after I was sent to bed. Every time my parents moved and attempted to weed out some of their books, I would always root through the "give away" stack and walk away with an armful to keep. I moved 24 boxes (small ones, of course) the last time. I just wish that there was room for another shelf in our house--maybe in the kitchen so I can more easily pick out a book to read while I'm stirring something on the stove...
Seven years ago on the last day of November, the baby I was expecting was overdue. I was miserable and kept poking my belly announcing to the creature inside that I was issuing an eviction notice. Finally, on that last November day, I started feeling contractions. Once in a while, but not often enough to actually seem like labor.
That night, we went to the mall to walk around and time contractions. Later, I decided (way too early) that it was time to go to the hospital. They did keep me, and I labored all night. With the dawn, my desire for natural labor had comletely disappeared and I got an epidural. Which turned out to be a good thing, since until I got it I had not dilated any further from where I'd been when I checked into the hospital.
Then I labored and labored and labored. The day passed. Everything moved s-l-o-w-l-y. Finally, after 25 hours and three hours of pushing, The Boy was born at 10:20 p.m. on December 1. He'd managed to make it as hard for me to get him out as possible, being over nine pounds, facing up instead of down and holding his hand up to his face.
I became a mom. The authorities trusted me to bring home a tiny little human. I had very little idea what life would be like with a demanding, wailing creature around and now seven years and three more children around, I can hardly remember that time before children.
The Boy has grown and changed so much in seven years, that I can barely recognize the face of the baby I once cuddled in the lean, lanky boy. Usually I think I want to keep him and see what the years to come will bring.
Hi Jordana-
I have been reading your blog for several months now, a lurker you could say. This post was so moving to me as a mother of a young son. I was touched by the sweetness, yet chuckled at your sense of humor. Yeah, I guess I'll keep my son too. It's amazing, these little lives unfolding right before our eyes. Happy birthday to your son.
How sweet--happy birthday to him. And to you, for that matter, because a new mom was born at the exact moment he was born. So happy 7th to you both!
posted by Terry Oglesby at December 5, 2006 10:08 AM
Happy Birthday to the boy, and congratulations to the mom who not only survived but has produced three more kidlets! I like the three cupcake arrangement. Two would not have been enough, while four would have seemed crowded. I hope he realizes that he's lucky to be getting cupcakes, considering all that you have to do with an infant in the house.
[My 8 year old is lean and lanky too, but still available for a big ol' hug!]
Jordana Adams, Chief Pontificator