farewell to mimi

Over the past few days, Nate's speech has really improved. He's started consistently putting two words together - he's done this before on occasion, but now it's a regular thing. Nine times out of ten it involves a truck. Dump truck. Big truck. Garbage truck. Orange truck. Mail truck. You get the gist. The other 10% it involves food, usually a request for more of something. More bread. More yogurt...

The major casualty of these newfound linguistic abilities is me. When Nate started talking, he called me, "mimi." At first, I was mildly irritated that Thad was "dada" and then "daddy" while I got a goofy nickname. My mother became "mama," which was also a little annoying, since that was supposed to me my name. But over the months, mimi's grown on me and I've come to really love it, especially when Nate says it in his cute little voice. But a few days ago out of nowhere he suddenly started calling me "mommy," and mimi magically disappeared from his vocabulary. Perhaps mimi is like Puff the Magic Dragon (spoiler alert!) - when Jackie grows up, Puff dies. Now Nate's getting older and, like Puff, mimi is gone. Darn, that song always makes me cry (no joke). I'm off to find tissues...

hats off

Nate's been putting lots of things on his head recently. Often it's something on his dinner tray - a plate, a cup, a spoonful of hummus - but it's also expanded to include toys and books. He spends at least 15 minutes a day with a bucket on his head walking around and bumping into things. It's a weird phase.

to market, to market

Boy, do I miss Wegmans and the Rochester Public Market. Since moving in, we've tried out four supermarkets, five hardware stores, two liquor stores, and one farmer's market, and none of them hold a candle to our Rochester options. Really, I most miss the selection at Wegmans - I could pick up produce, charcoal, cleaning supplies, paper towels, beer, and reasonably-priced milk all in one stop. We've got a Trader Joe's nearby, which is great for specialty foods, but doesn't have some of the more generic stuff (baking powder, for instance). There's a Roche Brothers, which I also liked a lot, but they're about 15 minutes away, so it's not ideal for a quick trip out for milk. I'm sure we'll figure it all out, but at this point it looks like we'll have four our five shopping lists:
BJs - for bulk things, like paper goods, perhaps some produce, dog food
Roche Brothers - general food stuff
Stop and Shop or Shaws - milk
Whole Foods - produce, meat
Target - household goods that aren't in mega BJs sizes

I have to say, I think that's kind of ridiculous. We're going to spend more time going from store to store than cooking. Hopefully we'll work out the kinks soon!

We're on the lookout for a good farmers market in the area too. We went to the Winchester Farmers Market, which had good quality produce, but it was super expensive. More than Whole Foods, even! Not like Rochester, where a bushel of tomatoes costs $1 - we will have to stock up when we visit (and either learn how to can foods or gorge ourselves for a few days upon returning!)

new digs

It was an appropriate Independence Day this year, as Thad and I moved into the new place (Nate arrived a couple of days later), and my cousins Dave and Jenny had their first baby, Anthony.

While we were at the new house unpacking, that darned ice cream truck, loudly playing "Turkey in the Straw," stopped right in front of our new house to ask for directions. No joke.

We're now officially living in our new house (and have working internet!) We have decorated the place in cardboard boxes, which are quite stylish. It's kind of an earth-toned look. U-Haul chic. Along with Thad's parents and sister and my dad, we spent most of last weekend cleaning and unpacking. The house was dirtier than we had expected, and we were so thankful to have Shirley "Supercleaner Extraordinaire" Carlson on our team. Thanks in large part to all the helping hands, we now have a working and baby-safe family/dining room, a safe but clean and disorganized kitchen, and part of a living room. Nate's bedroom is in decent shape, although it needs some sprucing up to make it fun. Our room has a comfy new bed (hooray!) and duffle bags full of clothes strewn around. So we've got lots left to do, but are making great strides at making the place livable. This week we've been inundated by plumbers and electricians (and the nice Verizon internet/tv/phone guy), but will hopefully have the house to ourselves by the end of next week.

Nate seems to be settling in well. He loves to jump on bubble wrap and he really likes the electrician, and really likes the plumber. He keeps pointing at them and saying, "man," and he sometimes calls the plumber, "buddy." And we had Julia over yesterday for our first new house playdate, sharing a formal snack of raisins, crackers and milk.

before

Whew! It's been a hectic week, and I'm pretty sure it's going to get more hectic over the next few days. Here's a brief synopsis:
We ripped a bunch of stuff our of the house last weekend - a drop ceiling in one of the bedrooms, some partition walls in the basement, and the insulation from the attic. We had planned on putting a bag or two out in the regular garbage collection each week, but clearly underestimated the amount of garbage we would actually have. So we rushed around on Monday to find a dumpster that could be delivered Tuesday and hauled away today, because our storage units are being delivered tomorrow and we needed the driveway free for that. Then Thad got sick, so we ended up lugging 40-plus bags full of sheetrock et al out of the house while he had a fever. He actually felt much better afterwards, so perhaps next time he's sick we should make him do manual labor? The floor people came yesterday and today to refinish some of the floors and we're going to start moving in on Friday. The only problem is that the floors were delayed a bit by a power outage, so we can't walk on the floors until Friday night or Saturday morning - it's not a huge issue because we can get in and out of the non-refinished rooms, which account for about half of the house, but we can't get at either of the bathrooms. Hmmm... And then last night my parents' dog got sprayed by a skunk, so this place stinks. And their washing machine broke, so Thad's currently at the laundromat (feeling much better, btw). Oh well! In the grand scheme of things, we have it quite good, even if Trevi does smell like Pepe Le Pew.