Hey, Britt

If you see this,

Happy Birthday!

You can now drink, gamble, and do all sorts of things you shouldn't and won't, anyway. happy Birthday

Best buddies, mostly

Kezie loves her "baby sister Iby." She is trying to teach Ivy to roll over, talks to her, and helps me pick out her clothes. I've found her trying to pick up the baby more than once.

Ivy loves her big sister Kezie. She is all smiles when Kezie is around, and her only real belly laughs have been for her big sister.

I don' t know what happened on Saturday. The girls were in their room, on Kezie's bed. I'd left them sitting there while I went to comb my hair. I could hear them, and they were talking and babbling at each other like they usually do. Shawn was in the living room. Everything was fine, and then we heard a little thump. Kezie shrieked and ran from the room. Shawn got to her first, and she was crying, "I don't want a baby sister! I want a dolly!" She wasn't hurt, but she was angry. Ivy looked perfectly innocent. This seems to be the first of those sister mysteries that their parents will never know.

Kezie

No news on the potty training front, but two days ago, i found her changing her own diaper. She was struggling to put the new one on, and called to me for help. I thought she had been napping, so I assumed her diaper was just falling off (which happens, as anyone who was at our house on Easter can verify) and came to help. She very proudly showed me that she had taken off the old diaper, wrapped it up, and put it on top of the diaper pail. Then she got a new diaper and was trying to put it on.

The same day, Kezie came up to me and asked, "Are you my best friend?" She's asked a couple of times since. I have no idea where this came from.

Happy Ivy

I've been trying to load a video of Ivy smiling, but it won't work. She has a big huge smile, and she inherited her dad's dimples. Mostly she smiles at her sister, but sometimes at Mom and Dad, and even a stranger in the waiting room. She's more than nine and half pounds; exactly four and one half times her birthweight. She is on the percentile charts now (third percentile for height and weight) so she's catching up!

I had never heard of late onset colic, but apparently it exists, and my baby has it. She is super fussy for at least a couple of hours every night. The severity varies; some nights it's not too bad and only lasts half an hour, and some nights she screams for two or three. I suppose I was doomed to have a colicky baby, after my own infancy. We are crossing our fingers that she grows out of it soon.

House

We have a house! Well, we will soon. Our offer was accepted, and now we just have to finalize the loan, get the place inspected and appraised, and jump through all necessary hoops while dotting I's and crossing T's.

I was going to post the link to the real estate listing, but I think that's TMI for a blog that anyone can see, since it includes the address. If there is anyone who is curious and wants to see pictures, I can give you the url.

We're already dreaming of wall colors and tile patterns; we don't do too much to fix it up at first because we lack both the time and the money. It really doesn't need a lot of work, it's just that most of the flooring and appliances are original from 1975. They're in really good shape for being thirty five years old, but really really ugly.

Shawn and I couldn't think what to do to celebrate when we got the news. I think that when I am holding the keys in my hand, it will really sink and I will really believe it. I'll probably do a happy dance. Then we'll go to work.

House hunting

Aaaaarrrggghh!

We found what appears to be the perfect house on Saturday. It feels like it's been waiting for us to find it; it's almost exactly what we want, and the absolutely perfect price. In fact, the price dropped three days before we toured it, right into our original budget.

The problem with a house this great, is that someone else is bound to find it, too.

We tried to make an offer on Saturday, but America First doesn't do anything mortgage related on Saturdays, so we had to wait until Monday. Someone else made an offer on Saturday.

Luckily for us, the other offer is contingent on the buyers selling their house. The owners are giving them until Thursday. If the other potential buyers have until thursday, and then the house in ours.

Waiting, waiting, waiting

Growing

Two months ago, she fit across the bottom of this swing. Now she has to sit up to fit in it. Ivy is well over eight pounds now. She sleeps well, is only fussy in the evenings, and has survived multiple attacks by her older sister, including a biting incident that left some pretty deep marks. She's a tough kid.

Kezie is back to normal. No constant tantrums, just the usual occasional two-year-old temper flareups. Shawn reminds me that she has done this before; just before she hit every major milestone as a baby, Kezie had several days where she was really really grumpy. We aren't sure what milestone she hit this time, though her articulation and sentence structures have gotten much clearer and more complex in the last week or two. I was hoping she was having a potty-training related breakthrough. So far, no such luck.