2027

I've been hemming and hawing about what to do for the upcoming race. You know, the big race. I've talked the talked. I've practiced some. I got some new shoes even.

But then I was having more leg pain and I went back to the doctor. I was pretty sure it was shin splints at that point (never mind the other pain/swelling thing) but thought I should check. I'll keep the story brief, but the one doc didn't think it was shin splints, saw something else in my chart, sent me to another doc to have some test done (all clear), sent me back to my regular doc for a follow up where I was told told it was probably shin splints. Nice.

So in that time, I didn't do any running. I guess it must have been two weeks. All of a sudden the 10k is this Saturday. Feeling tired and lazy from all the painting and house projects and lack of training, I thought I would pass until the next race.

But then I envisioned just how the race might turn out. I was crossing the finish line, hundreds of people cheering me on, "Go Laura! Go Laura!" The crowd thundering as I pound through the last stretch, only barely winded, but giving it my last - and best - push to the finish. Everyone roars as I break the yellow tape. I'm raised above the crowd's shoulders and carried through to the podium, where I accept my grand prize of $1,000,000. My family rushes to me, crying in amazement, saying that I am the best mother/wife/woman in the world! The crowd agrees and goes mad with excitement. The Lexington mayor declares the day "Laura Orsetti Day." There is finally peace on earth.

OK. OK. I guess I'm getting carried away. But I did decide that running the race would be more fun and more worthwhile than not. And I think that maybe the two weeks I took off may actually be a good thing. My legs/shins are rested up, I'm not too drained from recent training, and I am ready to go!!!!

Bring. It. On.

More progress here, less there

We've been killing ourselves to get the house ready to move in, knowing that once the furniture is there it will be much more difficult to do any painting/projects. This weekend we got the kids' room almost finished (just need to paint the trim and put in the hardware), we got the second coat done in our bedroom (just need to touch up the trim and put in the hardware), and took down the wallpaper and painted the front room. Plus we put up one of the skylight blinds in the kids' room (that only took an hour!) and the kids' curtains. Whew! All that's left (not noted above) is to install the handrail on the stairs, paint the playroom, and shampoo the carpets. We've decided to hold off on painting the office until later, and of course the bathrooms will wait a little bit.

But it's interesting. As we've gone through the house, we've found that all the rooms have different styles and qualities of switch plates and outlet covers. They range anywhere from the 69-cent plastic variety to some very nice high-quality stuff. Damon thought it would be nice to replace all the plates/covers with the same high-end ones, making the house a bit more uniform. Another trip to Lowe's and now just about every room is outfitted with some swanky looking covers. Yes - we are living large! But it's one of those little things that really adds a nice touch to the place. It just gives the whole place a "this is home - a really nice home" feel, rather than "this is just a step up from the rental place we came from" feel. And every time I turn on a light or plug in my computer, I am sweetly reminded of how nice a place we live in.

Now, as we get closer to our move in, I have been telling the kids that they will get their "Big-Kid Beds" at the new house. If you recall, they still sleep in some arrangement like this:


Although since I took this picture I've split up the kids and they sleep on opposite sides of the room (but still on the mattresses on the floor).

So I've been really looking forward to giving them their new beds that we got from IKEA...


But if any of you recall, we've been going through this Sticker Chart Challenge trying to get the kids to stop calling for us every night. Kestian has done pretty good with it so far, but Adelaide can't break the habit. The promise of stickers and ice cream have not taken to her, and the idea that J & A never call doesn't seem to matter, so I've brought out the big guns: no Big-Kid Bed until you stop calling every night for two weeks. Kestian pretty much has met that goal, but Adelaide has some work to do.

This is the "official" plan anyway. We'll see if I can go through with it. Because, really, I can't wait to move into our house, to finish their room, and give them their new beds. But trying to redirect Adelaide's nighttime behavior has been trying. Will it really come to Kestian getting his bed, and Adelaide still sleeping on her "Little-Kid Bed" because she won't stop the: "I can't sleep" (it's been 10 minutes) "My finger hurts" (I told you to stop playing with it) "I don't know why I called you up here" (ummmm....ok) "You didn't shut the bathroom door the right way" (then shut it yourself) "I have to go potty" (then go potty) EVERY NIGHT!?!

I know in the end this isn't a really big deal, and it will end one day (when, people, when!), but I would just like to be moved into our freshly painted house, and to tuck our kids into their new Big-Kid Beds, and as I turn out the light, see the wall switch and be reminded that this is our home...a really nice home.

And then there was...a garden!

One of the things we soon decided on upon purchasing our house was to get rid of the garden shed. Cute as it looks, it was loaded with nails, collected water underneath, and really served us no purpose. It's space could be better used for other things, so its days were numbered.

But this was a pretty solid shed. How to get rid of it? I put an ad on Craigslist and got about 50 responses, and after I called a few and got several no-shows and no-thanks, we found someone who a) really did want it and b) knew how to "dispose" of it.

Now, there was NO way Damon and I could have ever taken apart this shed. I know this because it took 3 men 4 hours with a truck load of tools and sledge hammers and whatever to get that thing apart. We could have never done it. We don't even own a shovel.

So, for whatever reason, these three guys decided to spend their afternoon stripping apart a shed, all for the sheer reward of the parts they would get from it. We still can't figure out who got the better deal. We got 3 people to spend their afternoon taking apart our shed and haul it away (and it cost us nothing!), and they got some nice timber and wood and beams (as well and some odd parts of a trampoline that we found behind it) just for their time and labor. It was a win-win situation.

So Damon took some pics of the shed demolition, and we discovered that we have a beautiful flower garden behind it. Now we can plant our vegetable garden and a tree where the shed was and we have so much more yard now too!!!

Why Frankenstein never had to employ the Sticker Chart Challenge

But seriously, as I mentioned yesterday, we are deep into our Sticker-Chart Challenge. Kestian earned his 7th sticker so I will be taking him out for ice cream tonight, and Adelaide "earned" her 6th sticker - on her way to getting #7. She technically called for us 2 (maybe 3) times last night, but it was because of this bug bite, and really after not getting a sticker from the night before I didn't want to play that kind of hardball because I know she is trying and doing much better. She was already starting to realize that she wasn't going to get ice cream with Kestian and getting sad about that and I didn't want to deny her the sticker, thereby putting her back another day, because she called 2 times. Now if it had been 6 or 7 times...

Anyhow, the kids and I were talking this morning about the sticker charts (and the impending ice cream treats) and the topic came back to the charts. They've asked several times now what will happen when the charts are full, and I have wondered that too. Right now the charts allow for 3 weeks of earning stickers towards the ice cream treats. But I don't want this to be the new norm: replacing the old habit with this. I want this to be the transition.

So what better way to get young children to do something than to convince them that someone they are fond of already does it...in this case, it is what I'd like to call absentee-role-modeling-peer-pressure. Recently we visited some friends up in Canada who have two kids close in age to Kestian and Adelaide. We'll call them J and A. Kestian and Adelaide had a lot of fun playing with J and A and I knew that if I said that J and A did such and such, they just might try it themselves - because kids who like other kids like to do what those kids do, right? Right.

So I said to Kestian and Adelaide, "Did you know that J and A just go to bed every night and never call for their parents?" (Of course, this may or may not be true, but that's not the point here...)

The kids thought about it and asked, "Do they have sticker charts?"

So I said, "Nope. They don't have sticker charts. They just go to bed every night and never call for their parents. What do you think about that?"

Their response, "We need sticker charts."

So I said, "Well, what if we used the sticker charts till they were all full, then tried to do what J and A do, and go to bed every night without calling. Do you think you could do that, because J and A can do that?"

The kids thought about it and nodded. I could see the gears turning inside. I don't think it really ever occur ed to them that they could a) go to bed without calling for us, or b) go to bed without calling for us without using a sticker chart

So with the plan set, we have two more weeks to show them that they indeed can go to bed without having to call all the time, and they don't need to use a sticker chart to do so, and if J and A can do it so can they!

The groundwork is laid, and the pieces are coming together. Hehehehehe.....

Waving: denied

We have a tradition every morning when we drop off the kids at school. And it may be unlike what other families do. We arrive at the daycare, we all get out of the car, we all go down to the classroom, put the appropriate items in the cubbies, and then chit-chat with the teacher for a few minutes before we say goodbye.

OK, that's actually probably the same for everyone...

But I think our "good-bye routine" differs a little bit from others - and I think the kids may have started to notice. So when we say good-bye, we each give hugs and kisses to each of the kids. I know, you're thinking, "Oh my gosh! How unusual!" But we see kids who are literally shoved through the door, with no parent saying "bye" - just open door, insert kid, shut door. OK. That is extreme, but we see it enough.

But anyway, our good-byes probably takes 10 minutes. We ask whichever child we are closest to how many hugs and kisses they want, then we switch kids and ask them how many hugs kisses they want, then tell them to have a good day, remind Kestian to eat all of his breakfast and lunch (more for another post), and then they may ask for "one extra" hug and kiss as we exit. THEN we go to the window and wave and blow kisses before WE ARE FREE! Ahem...I mean, before we somberly crawl up the stairs and trudge off to work, missing our kids all day long....

I guess it's gotten drawn out over time, but we thought the kids never minded it all, and we love all the hugs and kisses. Sooner or later they won't want to bother with all that, so we enjoy it while we can.

I guess, though, now might be "sooner." Because today both the kids said to us, "Mommy, Papa, just leave like the other parents. Don't wave good-bye. Just leave." I was shocked! What was that all about? Are they embarrassed by the waving? Do they not want to be bothered by it? Have they outgrown it already? And how long has this bothered them that they have finally decided to bring this up? We only do what we do because they wanted us to hug/kiss/wave.... And now they are telling us enough is enough - at least with the waving. I'm fine with not waving good-bye if they want to drop that part of the routine (although I was surprised by the request), but this better not lead to a kill order on the hugs and kisses. Don't deny me all your love!

So I think it's a little bit funny and a little bit sad. Just another step towards growing up. I guess next week we'll be dropping them off at the corner so their friends don't see us at all.

Table for two

or four... or six...

Having just bought a house and seemingly still bleeding money as we tackle repairs and things to get the house ready to just move in, we aren't really in the mood to make any more large purchases. I know many people see buying a new house as an opportunity to get all new furniture or whatever, but while that would be fun, it's not practical for us.

However, we really need a kitchen table - at least one that seats all four of us. Up till now we've been using a small table, with the kids' using their own small table, as seen here:


It's never been very spacious, and always filled quickly with the mail, the kids' school art, the leftover dinner dishes, the overflow recycling, and whatever. So finally it was time - now that we had a kitchen big enough - to get a real kitchen table!

We went to some furniture stores - disagreed on what we liked, scoffed at the prices, etc. We found one we like at IKEA, but there was no way we could get it home (and forget shipping!). Time was ticking and we had started using the patio furniture at the house because we needed something...

So I hunted around on Craigslist and found a table and 6 chairs for sale. Now Craigslist, like Cheapcycle or eBay, can be hit or miss. A lot of people put their junk up there, and that is fine. We all would like to sell our junk, and there are buyers out there! But sometimes you find some gems. I'd like to think we found a gem. Now Damon will tell you straight out that he hates the color of this table, and I'd agree that blond wood is probably not my favorite either...but it is solid wood (and I mean solid - I can't even pick the thing up!) and really sturdy. And six chairs - that's a tough find. All in new condition. And wayyyy less that what you pay in the stores, thank-you-very-much!

So I jumped on it and it was still available. The problem - how to get a kitchen table and 6 chairs home? Would you believe it all fit in our Matrix - in one trip? Yep. The legs came off and the table has a folding leaf, so that made the table more compact, but 6 chairs? Damon went by himself so I didn't see how he fit it in, but he did it. So now we finally have our first kitchen table - in our first kitchen.


Adelaide keep saying how much she likes it because "I don't have to sit on my knees when I sit at the table " (which the kids' so often have to do at restaurants).

Sticker-Chart Challenge

We are on day 6 of our Sticker-Chart Challenge with the kids, and for the most part it is going well. As of today Kestian has earned 6 out of 6 stickers, and Adelaide as earned 5 out of 6.

Adelaide didn't get one for last night because she must have called for us 3 or 4 times, and these weren't legitimate reasons: "I can't sleep" (10 minutes after going to bed); "My finger hurts" (where she keeps playing with it and we've told her a hundred times to leave it alone), and ... really I don't know what else. But it wasn't: "I have to throw up" or some other emergency.

And I had to wonder just how much of a hard-ass I was going to have to be this morning with her about the sticker, because really both of them have been doing a much better job than before. They have significantly cut down their calling from us from 63 times a night to one or none. It has been wonderful! But with Adelaide's 3 or 4 calls last night - although they weren't major infractions - I worried that if I let it slide would they lead to 5 or 6 tonight, 6 or 7 tomorrow... We can't get back in the habit. Be strong Laura! You said "One."

So this morning when I was handing out stickers, I gave Kestian his and asked Adelaide what she thought about her situation - because she called 3 or 4 times last night when she is only allowed one. Get this: she said she would try again tonight for her next sticker! There was no screaming, no crying, no begging. She totally understood and was like, "Oh, ok. No sticker for me today. I didn't follow the rules. Maybe tomorrow." I was so relieved!

So as it stands now, I'll be taking Kestian out - by himself - for ice cream tomorrow (assuming he gets his 7th sticker tonight) and it will be two more days for Adelaide. But that's how it goes.


And I will end this post with a quote from my dear Kestian, who doesn't quite get the whole purpose of this exercise, but hopefully it will come with time:

"If we didn't have our sticker charts, we could call for Mommy and Papa over and over and over and over and over - a hundred times!!!"

Oh my sweet Kessie.

Making progress?

Or are we? I don't know.

We have been over at the house all weekend painting like there is no tomorrow. Only tomorrow comes and there is still so much more painting. I don't mind painting. I actually like painting. Being able to transform a room in a few hours into something new is so neat. And because I have defined lines (usually) to follow, I look like I know what I'm doing - as opposed to the kind of painting my Mom does where you take a canvas and think of something and then paint it. I don't know how she does it, but she ends up with neat paintings that actually look like real things: boats, flowers, people... I can't do that. But I can paint a WALL!

The trouble is the sheer volume we are dealing with right now. All of the following rooms need to be completely or partially painted:

• upstairs bathroom
• master bedroom
  
• kid's bedroom
• office
• front room
• living room
• laundry room
• playroom
• downstairs bathroom
  

In fact, the only room that DOESN'T need to be painted is the kitchen (and DO WE want to paint the garage??)

So let's start with the upstairs...

Upstairs Bathroom:
I think we can leave the bathroom alone for now. It's OK. These people used wallpaper borders in almost every room, including here:

I don't know that I would have done it that way, but there is so much else to do that this may be a good winter break project. Meanwhile I can live with it since we want to only focus on rooms that need attention before we put furniture in them.
Upstairs Bathroom: To think about for later.

Master Bedroom:
The room we decided to take for our bedroom has left us wondering...

Ummm...what IS that on the wall? Some African safari savanna theme or something? And then there is one wall with this wall paper on that, if you look close enough, has cave paintings or etchings in it:

I actually like the wallpaper...but don't feel the connection between the two. I don't know how many caves there were in Africa where you also had elephants and giraffes roaming nearby. (Damon, you know more about this stuff than I do...am I right?) And then the room also has soccer-ball fixtures on the doors. I just don't get it.

So we are repainting this room a nice sage green - and we are leaving the "cave" wallpaper but not the soccer ball fixtures. We managed to get one coat done in this room (and it looks so nice and calm):

But after 3 hours to get one coat done, I didn't want to spend 3 more hours to do the second coat. That will be for next weekend.
Master Bedroom: 1/2 done.

Kids' Bedroom:
Off of our bedroom is the kids' bedroom. We started out with this:

But we felt the room really needed a window. After we had a guy come in and put one in, we started painting away. This will be quite a colorful room by the time it is done. The kids asked for blue (on Kestian's side) and green (on Adelaide's side), and we chose (what has turned out to be) school-bus orange on the walls in the middle. So far we have only gotten some of the green and blue done (at the bottom) and one coat of the orange:

In the picture above, there will be green going up all the way to the top where right now you just see white - then blue down the other side. Oh, and all of that purple trim will be redone in white. Still quite a bit of work to do here.
Kids' Bedroom: 1/3 done.

Office:
Last upstairs is the office. It's not a horrible room, except for the one wall of green, floral wallpaper:

And the less-than-appealing border that goes all the way around the room:

We aren't sure if we are going to tackle this room before we move in...but it will probably be the last room we work on - otherwise it will be a winter-break project... There is no consensus on what color (s) to paint it, or what to do if we find that the walls are not completely painted under the wallpaper border (see below).
Office: Status unknown

OK. Downstairs we go...

Kitchen:
As mentioned before, the kitchen is awesome, so we aren't touching this at all:


Front Room:
This room has some green and white striped wallpaper in it, along with a floral border at the top...

I started to take the stripes down and have found that I can pretty much just pull it off of the wall. So we will paint at least the bottom half with the leftover green paint from our bedroom. As for the border on top, I think it might be just easier to leave it for now. As you will see in the next section, I am concerned that if I take the border down I will find that they did not paint the white up to the ceiling and then I will have to paint the top section too. Ugh. More painting.
Front Room: Just started.

Living Room:
The only room I have actually finished is the living room. Really the most offending part of this room was the "bookshelf" wallpaper border that went around the whole room:

I quickly removed it only to find that they didn't paint the brown all the way down to the chair-rail. People! Come on! Plan ahead. Paint all the way in case you (or someone else!) might want to remove the border one day!

What to do...What to do? I certainly didn't have anymore of the brown paint and there was no hope of matching it. So I dug through the garage where they had left a whole bunch of paint, and found another brown "paint." I say "paint" because I came to find out while I was using it that it certainly wasn't latex (definitely oil-based) and very fumy and stinky. But once I realized it probably wasn't the best choice, I was too deep into the project to turn back. Anyway, I ended up painting an 8-inch strip around the room, creating a painted border which was certainly a more pleasing border than the bookshelf wallpaper and a decent compromise given the circumstance. I think it looks better:

Living Room: Done

Laundry Room:
The other room that is almost done is the laundry room. Who knew that such a small room would take so long to do. I've probably put three days into this room (here and there) so far and it's still not done. It originally looked like this:

With a muddy-brown paint and randomly placed decals and an unfinished wall, it needed to be redone for sure. I found an unused can of yellowish paint in the garage to paint the walls, and repainted the trim in white:

There is still some trim to finish as well at the doors, so that's why this room is not quite done, but I can do those things any time. I would like to just finish the room to be "done" but would rather get the other rooms done so we can move in. I can always come back to this room later.
Laundry room: Almost done.

Playroom:
Ok. So we still have left the playroom. Right now it's a clean slate. None of the previous owners, it seems, have touched this room. It's just white:

Nothing to remove, nothing to prep. It's ready to go. We've got the paint and have a semi-ambitious plan for this room, like the kids' bedroom. We'll be putting down an orange base coat and sponge-rolling a brown over it. I'm nervous to see how it will turn out.
Playroom: Ready and waiting

Downstairs Bathroom:
The last room on my list is the downstairs bathroom. The problem with this room is the lighting. It only has three lights over the sink; there is no main overhead light. And they painted the ceiling dark green. The walls are the same muddy brown that the laundry room was, so it's a very dingy, dark bathroom. I don't know why they painted the ceiling so dark when there's hardly any lighting, so I definitely need to repaint the ceiling to brighten it up, and I'd like to get rid of the border and repaint the walls.

But since painting this bathroom is not critical to moving furniture in, it can wait until later. But it is on my To-Do list for sure!
Downstairs Bathroom: On hold till after we move in.

Garage:
Lastly - the garage. It's not officially on my list because I don't know what to do. I've already taken down the bumble bee wallpaper border in here, but have thought about giving the walls a fresh coat of paint with whatever we have leftover (school-bus orange?). But do we want to do even more painting? I suppose it could wait. But once you start hanging stuff up and moving stuff in, it may never happen... The major problem with painting the garage it that is has very high walls. We do have a ladder, but will we still be able to reach the top? Is it worth it? Should we wait?

Garage: Status unknown

At this point, there is no way we can finish all the painting next weekend so that we can move in on the 4th of July weekend, but I think we can plan to move in the weekend after that. That should still give us enough time to clean out our rental house before the end of the month.

Sigh. So much to do.

Seeking utility

When we saw what is now our house in the listings, I knew right away that it had just about everything we needed. The size was great, it had 3 bedrooms, plus a bonus room, an awesome kitchen, a laundry room, 2 "living rooms," 2 full baths, a garage, and a fenced in backyard (with a pond!).

But we knew it needed a few things too. So our task before we move in has been to get the house in order so that it truly is as useful as we can make it.

Problem #1:

The floor plan of the house (downstairs) is "U" shaped. As you walk through the house, you enter through the front door into the front living room, then you proceed to the kitchen, then either to the laundry or to the back living room, then to the bathroom, then the front bedroom. However, there is no connection between that front bedroom and the front living room. So should we want to hang out in the front living room and the kids are in the front bedroom, we can't so much keep an eye on them.

Solution: Add an interior door between the front bedroom and the front living room. This will make the floor plan more "O" shaped now and allow us to do laps as we so much desire to do. At this point we have a guy working on things and the doorway is already cut out and the door is in. All that is left is the little transition floor piece and we can paint the door and trim.

Problem #2:

The upstairs bonus room (noted as the "Sitting Area" on the floor plan) is what we plan on using as the kid's bedroom for now. It's over the garage and has 2 skylights, but for whatever reason when they did that room, they did not put a window in it. Why, I don't know. So we really need a window in it. I don't know if it has to have a window in it for safety or easement reasons, but I'm sure it will get warm in there and I think it would be good for them to have one.

Solution: Since we're having a guy put in that doorway, why not also do the window? Plus, it makes the room one step closer to a "bedroom" thereby already increasing the value of the house. I believe that all it takes to classify something as a bedroom is a window and a closet. We could build in a small closet later and all of sudden we have a 4-bedroom house. Imagine the resale!!!

Problem #3:
The house came with this cute little garden shed out back. I thought it was cute, and it didn't bother Damon (at first) but now we think we'd rather have it gone. We notice that every time it rains a lot of water pools underneath it and just sits there. Certainly not good for mosquitoes and probably not good for the foundation of the shed itself. And since we did find some termites in the house inspection, we can only wonder if the shed may house some too. Add to that it takes up a lot room in our already small backyard and Damon wants to plant a garden. We weren't sure where we were going to plant the garden, but if we were to remove the shed we'd have the perfect space for a garden. Add to it all the nails that are exposed on the inside, and we have an accident just waiting to happen. But how do you get rid of a shed like this? You don't just haul it to the curb on trash day.

Solution: Craigslist. Oh. My. Gosh. I put the ad up this morning on Craigslist that the shed is free to anyone who can haul it away (granted it will have to be disassembled to fit through our gate since it's in a fenced yard), and I've already had about 20 calls for it. So much that I can't answer the phone anymore. So it should be gone by this weekend by someone! Then Damon is free to plant his dream garden.

So this weekend I plan on making some serious headway on the house. With the doorway and window just about done, and the shed probably out of here too, I'll be getting to town on the painting this weekend. We've picked out the colors, bought the paint, and I am so ready. If I can make serious headway on the painting this weekend and finish it next weekend, I could clean the carpet and we could think about moving in 4th of July weekend. And since we always move on 4th of July weekend, our tradition would remain in tact.

Penny pinching

We try to keep our expenses down where we can. We've been married for almost 12 years (our anniversary is next week - which I kept telling every one is 13 years...why did I think it was 13 years...I guess it just seems like forever!) and we still only have one car - and it's the first car we've bought (second car we've "owned"). We keep saying that we'll get a second car when we need one, but we still don't "need" one. Since we work on the same campus, it seems silly to buy two cars, and we always find a way to fix our schedules so that whomever needs the car has it.

Our saving-money approach extends to other things as well: we didn't have cell phones until last year, and only when we finally got with the times, we dropped our landline (because I am not paying for two phone services!). The cost of just the cell phones plus Internet has not been much more than what we were paying for the landline plus Internet. And now we have the portability.

And there's other things too: we don't own a dryer, we never buy bottled water, we try to use coupons as much as we can at restaurants and stores, and Damon looks for deals through FatWallet (did you ever hear about how I got a free laptop?). We have only bought a few new piece of furniture - most of them 12 years ago - and I've never "decorated" the house, let alone a room. We just take what we have and move it around.

Now that's not to say that we have completely refined all the penny-pinching techniques. We have our vices. We eat out too much, Damon's love for books drives him to buy more than he can read, I can't resist the $1 bins at Target. I only hope that in the end some of our bigger money-saving choices outweigh our frivolities.

But one other area we have held strong on is cable. While we are drawn to it like moths to a fire whenever we are at someone's house (oh, I LOVE HGTV!, and I know Damon LOVES ESPN), the amount of time we watch TV on a regular basis just does not justify the expense of it. So we have always been happy with our 5 - yes 5 - channels that we get, plus our Netflix subscription. Ah, Netflix. Bringing us Flight of the Concords, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and most recently we have been caught up in Carnivale. Certainly things we can't see on the local networks.

So with the recent transition to digital TV, we went out (with our government coupons!) and got our converter boxes. If you'll recall, when we got the boxes, we added a whole bunch more channels to our original bunch, but we lost FOX. I was right in the middle of watching House, and now with the box I couldn't get it. And Damon also watched a lot of sports on that channel - now gone. We tried all these different antennas and nothing helped. I finally guessed that it was probably the station operating at low-power, and only hoped that when everyone made the final switch that we'd perhaps get FOX back.

So February came and went and they changed the date for when everyone goes digital. Great. Ok, so June 12 came and went. I did a new scan and guess what: I get FOX. So Damon now could get his sports, and I was back to my House.

Now our new house comes with a TV in the kitchen. (How cool is that?) But that does present a problem. Because now I have to get a converter box and antenna if I want to watch anything there. Unfortunately, you can't get any more coupons (there is a "waiting list" - yeah right) so I had to pay full price for a box and then get another antenna. So much for saving money. In fact having to pay for the box and antenna got me so annoyed that I almost (almost) thought I might as well get me some cable, but bahhh, that would still cost more. Alas, we are a cable-free home.

Hmmm...although, having HGTV is tempting...

Musical chairs

I always wonder how well the kids do - socially - at school. Do they get along well with their friends? Do they pick fights? Are they teacher's pet? Are they the class bully? But, really, I get a sense of how well they do because I know we have some good kids (not just bragging or anything). But the teachers are never telling us that Kestian was hitting another kid, or that Adelaide never shares. They seem to get along great with the other kids, mostly because they save the picking-on and bullying for each other. I guess that's what siblings are for!

So a couple of times now when we have gotten to school to pick them up, they have just been starting a game of musical chairs. Not wanting to interrupt their fun, we've watched until they have finished. And it has been an interesting demonstration on their social skills as well - and I suppose on their ability to understand and strategize in certain situations.

All the kids start out walking around the chairs - with (of course) one less chair than there are kids. The music is playing and the kids all seem to be casually moseying about the seats. The music stops, and VOOM! everyone (except one) finds a seat! Adelaide seems to play the game pretty well, finding a seat if she can, but Kestian, however, seems to have a knack for the game.

And actually as I watch both of them, it really seems that neither of them are really paying attention. They go around the chairs, seemingly unaware of what's at stake! (Victory, people, VICTORY!) They step out of line, they trip, they stop to talk to the person behind them, they run over to show me something, they spin in circles to the music. But then SILENCE and VROOM! their butts are in a seat! And neither or them are pushing anyone out of a chair, but they just always find the open seats. Now Kestian sometimes really gets into it and he sometimes would do the well-known tactic of keeping one arm always on a chair so he could always find a seat, but he would get called out on that. But then he'd be right back to tripping, stumbling, and spinning, then SILENCE and VOOM! his butt would be in a seat.

The kids have never told us about musical chairs, but it seems that our kids have developed this "It may look like I'm not paying attention, but HAHAHA, I'm going to kick your ass!" strategy for the game. With an irrefutable sample size of two, I now can say that Kestian is the KING OF MUSICAL CHAIRS with Adelaide on his heels. Last week it was Adelaide coming in Fourth with Kestian winning, but yesterday it was Adelaide coming in second, with Kestian winning. Watch out Kestian, Adelaide is right behind you...but go TEAM ORSETTI!

Cease and desist order

Enough. I've had it. I'm done. Finished. No more.

That's right. I'm putting an end to it. Tonight we begin anew.

And I have a plan.

Hehehe.

How many of you (raise your hands) have kids (4 year old kids) who go to bed and just fall right to sleep and never call for you?

That's a lot of hands.

I hate you.

How many of you (raise your hands) have kids (4 year old kids) who don't crawl into your bed multiple times a night, kicking you in the back every 10 minutes so you can't sleep?

Oh, many, many hands.

You clearly don' understand me.

For all the rest of you who are blessed with trouble-sleepers, come commiserate with me. Now Damon and I are pretty gentle, sensitive parents, wouldn't you agree? We co-slept with our babies forever, never used the crib, never "cried-it-out," always tended to their cries at night... But we've got "big-kids" these days. The kids have long been sleeping in their own beds, and we made huge progress last summer with Big Kid Bedtime, and anymore the kids go to bed by themselves after stories.

But we still have a lingering problem - a two part problem actually:

1. They, more often than not, call for us anywhere from 1 - 37 times before falling asleep.
   
2. They still on occasion - but still too often - come into our bed where there is just not enough room.

(Now actually I don't mind Kestian coming to sleep in our bed every now and then, because he sleeps like a log and doesn't move an inch. Adelaide is a kicker, however, and tosses around constantly and neither of us can stand to sleep next to her.)

So after the last two nights of Adelaide crawling in the bed 3 times, and neither of us getting much sleep from all her crazy legs, and our attempts at trying to convince her that she needs to be in her bed failing or leading to full-blown arguments at 3 in the morning (and a time out at 5:30 this morning ), I see that tolerance is no longer an option. I need to bring it to the next level.

As I so often sink to the bottom before I can push up to the surface, I once again see a new approach to getting out of this habitual cesspool we now find ourselves in:

The 7-Sticker Challenge!

Since "Because I said so!" and "I'll take your Teletubbies away if you don't!" seem to have little effect, I'm taking the reward approach. I think it will be more fun for everyone, and I think it will be the last bit of motivation they need to stop this incessant calling for us 82 times a night (and the occasional crawling into our bed).

Here are the rules:

• Each night the kids have an opportunity to earn 1 sticker.
• They can each call for us one time if they need something.
• After that one time, if they call for us anymore they forfeit the sticker for that night.
• Additionally, if they crawl into our bed at any time during the night, they also forfeit the sticker.
• If in the morning they have earned their sticker, it goes on the Sticker Chart.
• When they have earned 7 stickers, they get to go out for ice cream.
• If one earns their 7 stickers before the other, they get to go out for ice cream at that point. (i.e. sticker-earning is independent of each child.)
  

I made them each a Sticker Chart, and we'll try this for 3 weeks. I can always make more charts...


I'm a bit worried as to whether this will work, but since we had such success last summer with Big Kid Bedtime in just 3 days, and we got rid of pacies in a week with just the promise of ice cream, that I wonder how quickly things will improve this time. Hopefully, we'll be eating ice cream this time next week!

Quiz

Question 1.
10 points.
Logic:

When going to Lowe's to buy a door and window for a small home-remodeling project, do you

a) carefully plan what you need to buy so only one person needs to go, freeing up as much space in the car as possible for when you transport your purchases home
b) bring the whole family with you, not realizing that when you've bought the door and window you then have to get the door, the window, and everyone home in the car - and you drive a Toyota Matrix
c) make all your purchases and somehow fit everything thing in (plus the whole family) and drive like an old granny all the way home, as your wife giggles and takes pictures
d) b and c

Correct Answer: D

Feedback:
Ok...we didn't quite think this one through. But it was good that we were both at the store, because had I just gone, I would have bought a "right-opening" door and a "left" door-knob thingy, but thanks to Damon's attention to detail, we picked out the correct door and doorknob. How is it that I wasn't the one paying attention to details!

And can I just say that I love our Toyota Matrix. We bought this car before we had twins, but little did we know how versatile and accommodating it would be. The fact that it has a separate opening hatch-window on the back-door is the only reason we got the door and window home with two kids still in their car seats. We have been able to get so much "stuff" (ahem!) in this car with or without the kids in it.


Question 2.
10 points.
Identification:


Part I - for 5 points, identify the above image:
a) some of the kid's artwork from school
b) some "cute" wall paper border
c) a fun picture that I want to hang in the kid's room

Correct Answer: B

Part II - for 5 additional points, identify the location that the above image was found:
a) the kid's bedroom
b) the kid's bathroom
c) the "playroom"
d) the garage

Correct Answer: D


Feedback:
Though some may find this to be cute, I do not really care for it. And since it was in the garage, I found it even less cute. Perhaps if it was tastefully done in a children's room, where the rest of the room was coordinated with it, I might not mind. But who puts wall paper border in a garage? You have to go out of your way to do that. It's not even like there was another room in the house that had this and this was leftover. I don't understand. And then someone had to get the supplies, take the time to hang it up, let it dry... and there were all these matching bees and flowers randomly put around the garage wall too. I'm sure it took a few hours to do. Did someone say, " Gee, I have this bit of kid's wall paper border, and nowhere in the house to put it. Let's decorate the garage." They must have been high. But I will say that it is all gone now. Some hot soapy water and a putty knife took care of that in an hour or so (thanks for the tips Mom!).

So how did you do?
20 Points: You Rock!
15 Points: Not bad...Not bad...
10 Points: Try again next time...
5 Points: Were you paying attention at all?
0 Points: Can I interest you in some bumble-bee wallpaper border?

Welcome to the neighborhood

After signing a thousand papers in a very anticlimactic closing, and handing over the biggest check evar, we now have the keys to our first house.

After the kids had their swimming lesson, we headed over to have or picnic. Having bought some patio furniture a few weeks ago, we set that up and enjoyed our first meal. Since we don't have a real kitchen table, I think this will be our surrogate until we can find something suitable.


Then we proceeded to feed the fish...


And then the kids ran through the house enjoying how empty it was. Today we get started right away on our tasks (why not!). After a short visit to the gym (more on that later) we'll be going to the pond store, the hardware store, and probably some furniture stores (hey! we need a kitchen table!).

Jump right in

In all of the craziness that has been our house-buying, we are also in the middle of

SWIMMING

LESSONS!

The kids started their two week class on Monday - when I was out of town - much to the dismay of a distressed Damon. I signed them up for the 2nd level class, partly because they took the 1st level last summer, and partly because it was the only class at the pool that fit our schedule. Damon did not care so much for the class selection. He mentioned it once or twice, saying something like, "They should NOT be in the 2nd level class!" or "There's no way they are ready for the 2nd level class!" or maybe it was "What were you thinking signing them up for the 2nd level class?!"

I guess I wondered about it too.

And I only got to hear about their first class via cell phone calls throughout the lesson while I was several states away. Damon narrated: "I'm in the gazebo. They are making me wait in the gazebo. I can't be by the pool. Kestian is looking for me. Adelaide just went underwater. She wasn't supposed to go underwater. They are the smallest kids in the class. I told you they shouldn't be in the 2nd level class!" But despite Damon's stress, the kids actually did quite well - even later according to Damon.


And as I watched them during their class on Wednesday and again today, I could tell that actually they were ready for the 2nd level class. Because back when they took the 1st level, it was all about just getting them in the pool, and then staying in the pool, and then holding onto the wall, and then whatever was next.


For this class, all of that is not an issue. They have no trouble getting in, staying in, holding on...so at these lessons they can focus more on blowing bubbles, going underwater, or whatever.

So on with the lessons! And as the kids learn to let go of the pool wall, we'll be standing by, learning to let go a little too.