Things to improve

Dale and I agree that it's important to pay attention to the things that need improvement in a house right away, before they become invisible.  Here are some things we have noticed.

• The lighting in the kitchen is poor - when you go to wash the dishes you are washing in your own shadow.  We think we could extend the track so it goes over the sink.  I'm also looking into under-cabinet lighting.
• The kitchen really lacks storage space, but there is a good spot for a large freestanding cabinet.  We're in the market for a buffet with a hutch, something like this one. But maybe not oak.  Meanwhile we are making do with random open shelving that the sellers left in the basement.
• We could use some sheer curtains in our bedroom as well as the opaque ones that are there, for when we want both light and privacy.
• The curb is muddy in the parking zone.  We should probably put gravel there (and expect to refresh it regularly).  People on the street have done various things.
• There are some outlets that aren't functional that it would be good to have repaired. 
• We've still only found the one phone jack, in the basement.  Maybe there are others hiding behind boxes.
• There's a very drafty spot by the back door.  There are probably others - we should do a search and check the inspector's report.

While I'm at it:  Fabulous little luxuries that we are enjoying multiple times a day include the miraculously thorough, forgiving, and efficient dishwasher; the filtered water from the door of the fridge; the shining interior of the fridge in which everything is completely visible and accessible; the pot rack; the touch-screen programmable thermostat; and the very melodious doorbell.

Big enough house

So this is what it feels like to have a big enough house!  Sue is spending the night here, and even though both she and the boys have gone to bed, I can go back and forth to the basement freely, flipping on lights as I go, moving laundry, etc.  In our old house the basement was both Aaron's bedroom and the guest room.  Now the boys are together in the smaller main-floor bedroom, Sue is upstairs on a real bed in the larger upstairs room, and the smaller upstairs room has no current purpose.  How about that?!

This house is not excessive, but it has room enough to accommodate our family for the next couple of decades.  There's bedrooms for everyone when the boys are big enough to need their own, and even then there will be a room for guests and/or an office.  Someday we'll make the upstairs more full-fledged by adding a dormer, expanding the bathroom, and updating the insulation and wiring and so on, but for now, it's totally fine the way it is.  There's a good section of the basement that should do well for a music studio, with room for Dale's bandies too (whoever they may be) - and they won't even have to look at the washing machine.  That will leave plenty of room downstairs for repair projects, an art area, and well-organized storage (let me fantasize, all right?).

Sue spent the late afternoon outside in the yard with the boys, and they all loved that.  Jordan prefers not to get dirty but helped with the weeding anyway:  he told Grandma that he would use the shovel to scoop the dirt, but she should be the one to pull out the weeds where he had scooped.  Aaron doesn't mind at all being dirty; he dug with any available implement and said "Wormy, wormy, wormy!" every time they spotted an earthworm.  There were plenty - the soil is terrific in all the beds.  There's evidence of much successful gardening, including roses, blueberries, raspberries, peas, kale, broccoli, rhubarb, spinach, onions, and carrots.  We picked and ate some early arugula and admired the large rosemary bush.  The sellers let us know that there are lots of hummingbirds who would appreciate a feeder.  Sue is thrilled to have access to some garden space, and we are thrilled to have her go to town on our behalf -- she's an awesome gardener.  Dale is equally eager.  I'll play in the dirt too, but I expect my specialty to be cooking up all the fruits of their labor.

Sue had come not only to visit but also to free Dale and me to finish cleaning out the apartment.  We have now removed every item from there except the cleaning supplies, and 90% of the cleaning is done... I was disappointed not to get that last little bit done today, but it was better to just go home and have dinner with everyone at a normal time.  Scrub, scrub, scrub.  Every fingerprint on the matte white doorways, every mark on the beige carpet, every dusting of construction particles has to be cleaned up until the place is spic and span.  I feel like the Karate Kid washing all those cars.  

We're in!

We had a great moving day yesterday -- long, but we got all the big stuff (and a lot of little stuff) in just two trips, thanks to super generous help from Bob, Andy, and Hunter. The weather cooperated. And wow, the house! It's so wonderful, and it's our house! We love the layout, we love the fixtures, we are having fun with the luxurious appliances, we even love the paint. It feels like it was ours before we even saw it -- it just makes sense. Of course there are odd things here and there... as in, it took us two days to find even one phone jack (hence no blogging). But hey, who needs more than one phone jack anyway, in these wireless times.

Last night (Wed) was our first night in the house. Phil, who often has a hard time with transitions, made it something of a tough night with the yowling and the scratching at doors and stomping on our bodies. Eventually we figured out a way to enclose him far away from us. Then, after too short a time, we woke up to ... snow! lots of snow. School opened late, which was fine; it was a good day to have a relaxed schedule. Here are the boys waking up.

Cute family time aside, it's a relief to have the school day during which to tame the chaos of boxes, at least enough to enable minimal eating and self-care. Whenever Aaron is here, he has to be constantly monitored, because we are not as yet adequately babyproofed. It reminds me of our sojourn at the Glenway house, when you could not so much as toast a waffle without finding Aaron teetering at the top of the stairs. His balance has improved, but his confidence has grown even faster.

Coping mechanisms

We had a two-birthday-party day yesterday... fortunately, in between, Jordan got to nap. The face paint is a beautiful dolphin courtesy of his classmate Sophia's mom.

Jordan is showing signs of stress from the moving, poor guy. On the surface he's enthusiastic about moving day. But he's a bit of a pill at home, and at school he keeps talking excitedly about his friend Theo - how he is so excited to move in with him, share a room, see him all the time, stuff like that. At face value, this doesn't make sense -- we're not moving in with Theo, and in fact haven't been seeing a lot of him lately. But when we moved here from Maryland, Theo's presence here was an important point of stability for Jordan. I think moving might mean "everything changes but Theo." I feel bad for him that the prospect of a giant change has him mustering all his coping mechanisms. Hopefully he'll recognize soon that this move is a lot easier than the last one.

Boys together

We had dinner out tonight, and when we got home, Jordan declared that he was tired and wanted to go to bed.  When I said it was Aaron's bedtime first, Jordan said that he and Aaron should go to bed at the same time and that Aaron should sleep in his room!  Hooray!  We were looking forward to bunking the boys together in the new house, but hey, no time like the present.  Cutest bedtime ever.  Jordan asked for a song and I could not resist Hinei Ma Tov.  And now they are asleep.  This has great potential... Jordan could really benefit from an earlier bedtime, and hopefully Aaron will help him get up in the morning.  Not to mention that we can now put boxes in the walk-in closet.

Because they went down early, Dale and I got an extra half hour of evening time in which to chill.  We both spent it on Facebook.  Hm.

Zingers

Jordan said today that you should try not to get too sad or angry, because if you get too sad or angry, "you could lose God, and then lose yourself." I said, "Tell me more about that" (thank goodness for that all-purpose response to children's zingers). He said that if you are very sad or angry there is only a little bit of room inside you and maybe not enough room for God. I asked if he had class with Julie today (his Judaics teacher), and he said yes.

I have been mulling over what he said and overall I'm pretty impressed. Jordan didn't seem to take this "losing God" as a threatening prospect, but rather as a motivation to calm down and feel better if possible. That's usually a good idea. And I do think that often (not always, but often) getting very sad or angry involves inappropriate self-centeredness, and a loss of perspective. Which is maybe what he is learning, in a four-year-old Jewish kind of way. I'm for it.

He's pretty into his teachers. He told Dale the other day that there was a character in Star Wars named Nemo. Dale thought this might possibly be true, but informed Jordan that that was not the same Nemo as the fish. Jordan strenuously objected to this correction, saying, "No Daddy! My teacher -- she's much wiser than you are -- she said it was a fish." Well, sheesh.

Construction update

The construction on the walkways lately is possibly even more stressful and disruptive than when the walls were torn out of our apartment. There has been debris all over the place since Friday, including unattended over the weekend: mostly broken pieces of drywall, plaster-type dust, scattered nails, and just garbage. We notified the management of the problem, but it wasn't addressed today - in fact there's more junk in addition to what was there over the weekend.

Now, there is a truly scary thing, which is that one of the heavy wooden boards that substitutes for a railing is unattached. This afternoon it was just balanced up against the posts, in danger of being blown or knocked over. Those boards are three feet high and probably eighty pounds -- if one fell on Aaron, it'd flatten him. I found the manager and let her know, but nothing happened. Now it's lying down on the walkway, so there is no railing.

Our nice, friendly construction guys who always left the place in the best possible condition? They have disappeared. In their place we have foul-mouthed guys who leave the place dirty and unsafe.

I cannot imagine what it would be like to live here if we didn't know we were leaving soon. What if we had to put up with this for months into the future? I never know what is around the corner. Dale thinks we'd have to move. I am just glad we don't have to make that decision.

The trees' birthday

Jordan's class celebrated Tu b'Shevat, which they call the Trees' Birthday, with a charming seder featuring fifteen different kinds of fruit and two different colors of juice.  What's not to like?  I attended and it was pretty entertaining.