So Darn Cute!

And happy to report that her poop has returned to its normal consistency ;)

Coach Smith

After 3 weeks of flag football Joel finally put 2 and 2 together and realized that "Coach Smith" is THE Steve Smith. His son is on Ben's team.

Three Doors Down

So if all goes well, this lovely... I don't know, craftsman style? I made that up -- house will be ours on May 15. And yes, as the title of the post suggests, it is only 3 doors down from our current house (which we will be listing for rent in about another week). How funny is that - to move 3 doors down?? Who does that?? ;) I think the kids are going to be much happier about the prospect of moving though, especially Ben who wasn't really getting the concept... he kept asking who we were going to move next to, as if not understanding that he might not actually know anyone in the new location. Of course now, we won't have that problem ;) And Caroline will have her own bedroom, Ben will have his own bathroom, (the girls will share a bathroom) and Mom will have a real office! YEAH!

Max and Molly

Rebecca's pet caterpillars.

Dear Weekend, Please Hurry Up

So yesterday not only was Caroline still home from day care, but our home internet and phone service went out. So I took Caroline to B&N for the morning and tried to get some work done, and then gave up at 1pm because I did not want to keep her in her car seat all day (and she wouldn't've let me even if I'd wanted to). I took the rest of the afternoon off, and scheduled a service technician to come fix our phone/internet, which fortunately was up and running again by the evening.

Today Caroline went back to day care, where so far hopefully she is remaining diarrhea-free (I hope? They have not called me...) My life has been complicated today by not one, not two, but THREE showing requests for today. For the two afternoon ones, I put the dog in her crate on the back porch and relocated myself to Barnes & Noble. I hope she doesn't spazz -- I have never left her at home for a showing before. Tomorrow we have another showing in the morning, but tomorrow should be easier because a) I took the day off and b) I am going to send Clara to camp for the day. Ben's off tomorrow for the start of his spring break, so he and I will just find something to do together for the morning.

Regarding the quest for a house, negotiations on our neighbor's house stalled out for a bit, but resumed again today with the presentation of our final-final offer (not to be confused with our final offer, on Tuesday). In the meanwhile I visited a couple of much more expensive houses in a different neighborhood and satisfied myself that a) they still weren't perfect and b) I really do love our neighborhood and would much rather stay there.

Joel's trip to Minneapolis (after getting off to a questionable start when he left his carry-on on the plane) seems to be going smoothly, and he will be home tomorrow. Tomorrow, please get here soon! This week has been rough :P

Pooping Machine

Caroline actually made it from about 10 am yesterday until 5pm before having her second diarrhea episode at day care, so despite technically making it through the day, she was asked not to return until she is diarrhea-free for 24 hours :P Unfortunately that is a pretty tall order considering that she has had diarrhea at least 4 times already today (I lost count). So I've already ruled out tomorrow as a possible date for return to day care. So my work-week is not looking terrifically productive at the moment... Also, Ben has off Friday for the start of spring break. I am thinking of just taking Friday off. I need a vacation already!

Most Annoying Showing So Far...

Last night's showing, scheduled from 6:00 to 7:15, was VERY ANNOYING! The ideal scenario would have been that they showed up promptly at 6, looked around for 15-20 minutes, and then left. Unfortunately what happened was, the realtor showed up at 6:10, went inside and made himself at home it seems, and waited for his clients to show up. The husband showed up at 6:40, and the wife showed up at 7:05. So our house was occupied for the entire showing window, leaving Joel and I to take the kids and the dog on a very, very long walk. After a while we gave up and sat on our neighbor's porch across the street and watched our house very grumpily waiting for them to leave. After they left we put the dog in her crate and took the kids to Noodles & Co. for dinner and everyone was rather tired and grumpy and irritable on account of having such a late dinner.

Of course, the feedback response from the agent was that his clients would like a bigger kitchen.

Manic Monday

Caroline went back to day care this morning, but as of 10am had already had diarrhea once, so I am thinking it's only going to be about another 1 - 2 hours before I get The Call. She has been improving in that her fever has gone away and her diarrhea has lessened, but yesterday she had diarrhea like 4 times and that's three times too many than day care allows ;) But I thought I'd give it a try anyway today because I DESPERATELY NEED TO GET SOME WORK DONE.

Over the weekend we had 2 showings, Ben's flag football game, a birthday party for one of Rebecca's friends, Hebrew school, and Rebecca's first soccer game (she ran around grinning crazily, sometimes after the ball and sometimes not). We have another showing tonight at the worst possible time, being 6pm - 7:15pm meaning the potential buyers can show up any time in that window, effectively kicking a family of 5 and a dog out of their house for an hour AT DINNER TIME! Nice people, nice. You better buy my house. The dog just ran around tracking mud everywhere so I have some major cleanup to do before the showing.

We're getting ready to put a bid in on another house, complicated by the fact that we know both the seller and the listing agent personally, and by the fact that our starting bid is 20% below asking and we're not prepared to budge too much from there. But the house is overpriced!! I hope we get it though. It's nice. I could see us living there. We probably won't get it though :P We made a similarly low bid on a similarly overpriced house last weekend, and were rejected after one round of negotiations when it became clear we weren't prepared to pay anywhere near asking price.

Joel leaves for a conference in Minneapolis tomorrow. I hope the rest of the week is not as crazy as today is shaping up to be....

Newest member of the Tel Aviv Kickers

Chillin'

Sick Baby Day 2

Here is the sick baby on day 2, back at the doctor's office happily waiting to be cathed! She actually tolerated the procedure quite well, not crying at all only looking briefly concerned. Her urinalysis and blood work came out clean again, and Mom was reassured that she is remaining hydrated! (That was my biggest concern). Caroline obligingly provided two stool samples for the lab while we were there, as well, for them to send out for analysis. Since her fever is spiking at night and then going away on its own during the day we are pretty confident that she has a virus and not any kind of bacterial infection. Nevertheless one more torture session, err doctor appointment, is scheduled for tomorrow morning just to be sure she is still looking great.

3 Days of Day Care = Sick Baby Already!

I wonder if that's a record, 3 days into the day care routine, and Caroline has come down with her first illness - fever and diarrhea. Since she is slightly past the 3 month mark, the doctor was not as concerned as she might have otherwise been, however we did have to provide blood samples, stool samples, urine samples, and still another stool sample which I need to drop off later on today. Even though by the time we got to the doctor's office her temperature had dropped on its own from a high of 100.4 down to 99.5. I wonder if its written on her chart that Dad's a pediatrician, and this is why my children seem to get overzealous treatment at the doctor's office? (We did not see our regular doctor, who of course knows this). At any rate, the rate of diarrhea seems to have slowed somewhat, and she is drinking a bit more now, and napping comfortably / seems happy. Oh, and she is now 16 pounds, 4 oz!

Research Project

Ben completed his first research project, on great white sharks. Parents were invited to come see the kids share their projects today, which were completed entirely in class with no help from mom and dad! Ben was very proud of his project. He did a great job!

Bunnies

I walked out the front door this morning to see Ben off to school, and nearly trod on a dead baby bunny. TWO dead baby bunnies in fact. Ulysses was quite a prolific serial killer of baby bunnies last night it seems, and left the evidence on the front porch. After the initial surprise/dismay of the finding, I sent Ben on his way and immediately grabbed a couple of trash bags and disposed of the evidence. I did not want Rebecca to see her favorite animal mutilated in this fashion! But she was, as far as I knew, still in bed asleep, so I had time... I scooped them up and chucked them into the garage trash can (Why does Ulysses decide to kill two bunnies the day AFTER the trash gets collected? Hope the Odor Shield holds). Then I turned around and walked back in the front door, congratulating myself on having gotten rid of them immediately so Rebecca wouldn't know -- and there she was, standing at the foot of the stairs in her PJs.

"Rebecca! I didn't know you were up yet!" I said.

"I wanted to see the baby bunnies," she said.

Ready for School!

Last Week of Maternity Leave

I've been trying to keep busy and keep my mind off the fact that I go back to work on Monday!!! I have been doing errands, enjoying the nice weather, and trying not to think about going back to work.

In house-news, we looked at a few houses this week and found one that we like in our same neighborhood but unfortunately it a) is priced about 30,000 dollars over where any sane person ought to have priced it, and b) it just came on the market a few days ago so I am guessing it will take the owners a while to realize how overpriced it is. Unfortunately there is not much on the market in our neighborhood right now of the size we are looking for. In fact counting the aforementioned property, there are only 2 active listings and the other one belongs to our neighbor 3 doors down and he has his way overpriced as well (again by at least 30,000 dollars). Coincidentally two other houses of similar size both went under contract in the last day or two, that were a lot more reasonably priced. (We had looked at those already and ruled them out for various reasons).

Our own house has been getting showings rather infrequently, at the rate of about one every week and a half (last one was yesterday). We're going to drop the price a little and see if that helps, but still planning to go ahead with renting it if we can't find a buyer.

As you can see I am trying to occupy my thoughts with house-hunting and not with you-know-what ;)

3 Months Old!

Okay, I am a day late with that. Happy belated 3 month birthday Caroline!!

Supplies

Caroline is prepared for her first day of day care on Monday! (Mom however is not).

Open House

We held an open house Saturday afternoon, which involved cleaning the house and then keeping out of it for three hours, which meant bringing the dog with us to Ben's flag football game and then taking Clara to a dog park. This does not sound so bad except for that the dog was not allowed at flag football and the kids were not allowed inside the dog park. So it was a bit if a hassle all so that only one person could show up for the open house. I think we are done with open houses.

Caroline....

Now even fatter, and with more hair.

Purim Play

Ben's Hebrew school class performed the Purim story with a Toy Story twist this morning. Ben (in black) played an assassin (aka Zurg). The kids did a great job!

What's New

The last few days have not been very eventful. Ben's football practice for Saturday was rescheduled to Monday night because of rain, and Monday night meant I had to take all 3 kids to football practice by myself and since it was cold and getting dark I stayed in the car with Rebecca and Caroline while Ben practiced with his team on the field. Staying in the car was rather annoying because I could not park close enough to the field to have a good view, and because I had to take Rebecca to the bathroom twice. Then I kept having to walk over to the field to check if they were done practice yet because I didn't want Ben to walk back to the car by himself in the dark. So basically I spent an hour walking back and forth from the field to the car to the bathroom and back. Fun stuff.

Joel and I decided that if we can't sell our house, we'll rent it, since the rental market is supposedly very strong right now and houses in our neighborhood rent within a day or two. So says the rental agency Joel talked to anyway. So we decided that we will start looking for a house to buy, taking our time, and after we find it, successfully purchase it, and know the closing date, we will line up a renter if we have not sold this house by that time. (We've had 5 showings and the feedback every time is either that the kitchen is too small or that they don't like the overall layout). So this afternoon we're going to go look at a few properties, though nothing I am overly optimistic about I think. I think it might take a while to find everything we're looking for.

I am beginning the dreaded Back to Work countdown -- only a week and a half of maternity leave left!!

Play Time

Even Rebecca knows it's Friday!

I shuttled Ben over to the neighbor's house for the walk to the bus stop this morning, then fixed a bottle for the baby and as I was feeding her (just before 7am) I heard Rebecca wake up and start singing over the baby monitor: "It's Friday, Friday... it's Friday, Friday... everybody's looking forward to the weekend, weekend... partying, partying...." attempting to sing the worst song ever written which for some reason (maybe that's why) really appeals to four year olds apparently. I so wish I could have recorded her singing it, but alas I was trapped by a feeding baby and if I'd tried to put her down she just would have screamed and ruined the video anyway. And then Rebecca finished singing and announced that she had pooped in her pull-up, which was not a very fun way to start my Friday...

Why are my animals obsessed with pacifiers??

My cheeks are so fat mommy was wondering if I was suffering from an allergic reaction

Update

Joel went back to work today - he is still anemic and tired, so am waiting to see if he makes it through the whole day or not!

Here we are, March 1, a beautiful sunny day, currently 75 degrees and going up to 78!! WOW! I am wearing shorts and flip flops. Looks like spring is on the way. Except for the long range forecast has us back into the 50s on Sunday and Monday. Oh well.

Speaking of March, I am scheduled to go back to work March 19. Caroline was officially moved off the waiting list and placed into the infant room at Lambs of Grace. I took over the first 2 weeks payment this morning, and the infant room teachers are supposed to call to schedule a home visit - apparently they visit the homes of all the families to get to know them better. So that's neat - I never heard of a day care doing that before.

The kids are doing well; Rebecca is her usual difficult, stubborn, exuberant, charming self ;) And Ben is earning praise from his teacher for his math skills (something his mother is entirely unable to relate to ;) He was the fastest in the class at math drills last week, and would have gotten a 100 on his last math test, which was on addition and subtraction using regrouping (you know like carry the one and all that) except that he accidentally subtracted a couple of problems that were supposed to be addition, because HE DOES NOT PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT HE IS DOING! (sigh).

On the house selling front.... there is nothing new on the house selling front. We had 2 showings the first weekend the house was listed, 2 showings the following weekend, and nothing since then. We were supposed to have an open house this past weekend, but canceled it due to you know, like, Joel almost bleeding to death. We have rescheduled it for this coming weekend. Also this weekend Ben starts flag football.

Love These Chunky Thighs!

I lost track of how many weeks old we are today!