it's oh so quiet

So not quite a week ago we thought Nate had turned a social corner and he was talking up a storm. It seems that storm has quicky passed and the kid clammed up again. We'll catch him talking to his toys very occasionally, but when there are people (or a camera) around he is silent. This reminds me a little of when he first slept through the night - we knew he was capable of it, but then he wouldn't do it again. Sigh.

Nate will put anything within reach in his mouth and seems like he always wants to suck on something.

glamor shots

Here's a pic from Nate's photo shoot last weekend. Considering he cried the entire time, I think Corin got him looking awfully cute.

a poopy afternoon

The weather is amazing today. So nice that I took a walk in a t-shirt. It was great to be outside in the sun (a rarity here in good old Rochester) and we met lots of neighbors. It seems that having a baby makes people far more interested in you than if you're on your own. We've lived in our house for about six years now, and people are just now approaching us and introducing themselves. Anyway, I met a man who told me to introduce myself to another neighbor, Fanny, who was outside doing yardwork with her kids, because she "has a new baby." I think this is a funny saying, and I told Nate so much, as we walked over to Fanny's house. I mean, can you really have an "old baby?" I say hi to Fanny and mention that Joe Shmoe from down the street said to say hi because we both had babies. Turns out her's is three weeks old. So I guess Nate now qualifies as "old." And I qualify as a "slacker" because not only is this woman home with three children (ages 5, 3, and the infant) but she is doing YARDWORK. And I still haven't figured out how to take a regular shower. How can this be?

So home we trot, stopping to talk to the rest of Nate's fanclub on the way, and my old baby goes down for a lovely nap. Feeling pretty lame that Fanny can garden already, I head out to conquer one of my least favorite annual chores - picking up dog poop that has accumulated in our yard over the winter. If you think cleaning a toilet is a lousy job, this is infinately worse - like one gigantic, quarter-acre toilet. My brave mother-in-law actually began this rite of spring on her last visit, leaving a small mark on the chore. Pounds and pounds of poo later my back hurts and I give up. How is it that poo has this amazing ability to just get all over the place? I think we probably have one more major cleaning to do before things are back to normal.

Inside, little Nate is happily swinging away, and, appropriately, has pooped all over himself. So if I didn't have enough fun cleaning up four months of dog poo, I then got to extend poopaganza a bit longer. Hooray!

this is the house that jack built

These are the trucks that came in the morn to fix the basement all forlorn














That worried the dogs that lay in the house that Jack built.

This is the sign where the workers smoked making the homeowners think it was a bit of a joke



















This is the van where we paid the air monitoring guy an arm and a leg to sit all day because the governement requires him to stay on the property even though all he needed to do was set some little machines up in our basement and leave them there for hours while the tile removers worked in their little bunny suits in the vacuum-sealed basement















This is the bathroom that we thought we'd tackle. It just needs some moulding, paint, and spackle.



















High ho the derry oh, the cheese stands alone.

march madness

Our house is a mess these days. The bathroom is coming along (we now have all the necessary appliances working, although we still need to finish up the moulding, spackle, and paint) and we are FINALLY getting around to removing some aesbestos floor tiles in our basement. We wanted to get all this stuff done before Nate was born, but no such luck. Anyway, when we bought the house about six years ago we actually got money back from the sellers to remove the tiles, so we acted propmtly and have someone coming tomorrow to do the work. It sounds pretty cool - they seal off the room and create some sort of special entryway where they change in and out of their bunny suits so there's no contamination. Thad thinks there may be a truck involved somehow. We'll keep you posted.

Amelia, my best friend from kindergarden, visited a few days ago from DC. It was fun catching up, and a bit odd to think that we've know each other since we were slightly larger than Nate is now. How time flies. Sorry, Meils - I am still incapable of taking good pictures:

chatty cathy

Was there a boy version of the Chatty Cathy doll? If so, he probably looked a lot like Nate. The kiddopotamus started talking up a storm yesterday, and seems to be doing the same so far today. I'll try to get a video of it sometime. It's quite endearing.

He was in a great mood yesterday and is in a so-so mood today. He woke up and was really happy, babbling to himself. Then after a short morning nap we went to our friend Corin's place to get some photos taken (she runs a freelance photo business and loves taking pictures of babies). Nate was not so enthusiastic about smiling or babbling there, and spent most of the time being fussy. It should be interesting to see how the pictures turn out!

ghost baby

I've been hearing a phantom baby. Nate will be in his room sleeping and I'll think he's crying, so I shush everyone only to hear silence. This has been going on for a while now, maybe a couple of months? It reminds me of when you stare at a light and then look away and still see spots. I hear a crying and turn away and hear the ghosted remains of the sound. Only difference is I hear the crying hours after Nate's in bed, where the sun spots go away in a minute or two. Thad doesn't seem to have this problem, and correctly hears when there is a baby crying and when he is quiet. My friend Amelia came to visit yesterday and I confessed my hallucinations to her and she replied, "I've only been here a day and I'm hearing the phantom cries too!" Is this some kind of female thing? Are we somehow wired to hear babies, even when they are sleeping? Or perhaps I'm just a little crazier than I realized?