Odds and Ends

I am exhausted. E.X.H.A.U.S.T.E.D! We've done so much work on the new house, and there's still so much to do. But I do feel like we've gotten over the half-way mark, and we're sprinting towards the finish line. We're so ready to move over there and have this all over with. The Greatest is working like a man possessed. I'm actually grateful he's working two twelve hour shifts at his "real job" in the next two days so I can proceed at a more relaxed pace. I'm still going to go over and work on the house without him, but I'm going to stop around noon to feed the kids lunch, instead of, oh, I don't know, THREE! And I might take an hour off in the afternoon so Sweet Pea can take a decent nap in her own crib instead of a fifteen minute cat nap on my shoulder. (It is a true sign of what a bad sleeper she is when I consider an hour to be a decent nap. This kid does not like to sleep).

Speaking of Sweet Pea, she's mobile. She isn't crawling in the traditional form, but she does get around. It's a cross between an army crawl and a bear crawl. It's not graceful, and it looks awfully labor intensive, but it gets her where she wants to go so she is thrilled. She's also mastered going from a sitting up to crawling, and now she's working on the reverse action. It's so fun to watch her on the floor trying to puzzle it all out. We think she successfully executed the maneuver, but of course neither of us were watching. We just know she was on her hands and knees trying to sit up, and a few minutes later she was sitting up. Whether there was intervention in the form of Pork Chop, or if she did it all on her own, we just don't know. She's eating everything we set in front of her. We have yet to find a food she will not eat. Until last night her favorite was avocado, but last night we gave her watermelon. She was shoving those tiny red cubes of heaven in her mouth as fast as her chubby hands would move, often smashing pieces into her cheek in her impatience to get more in her mouth. I may have to have watermelon on hand for the rest of the season, it made her so happy.

There's been knitting, but not much in the past few days. I've knit another pair of pants for Sweet Pea for this winter. I'm almost done with a matching sweater for her pants. This obsession with baby pants really is threatening to grow out of control. But for the moment exhaustion is keeping the obsession in check.

And just for the record. I did not intentionally do a bad job on painting. I am just naturally bad at it. It takes a certain degree of hand eye co-ordination, which surprisingly, despite all my knitting, I lack. It might also require general body co-ordination, which I also lack. I did help The Greatest paint our family room the other day when his friend from work failed to show up to help. When I dropped my wet roller on the only six inches of flooring not covered by a plastic drop cloth he didn't even say a word to me. But I notice he found other places for me to be when he painted the kitchen. I try.

And Stephanie. I did not paint Pork Chop's room. I picked out the color, I went with him to buy the paint, then I hung out with my Mom while The Greatest painted. Mom and I did hang the border in Pork Chop's room, but my hands were paint free. I did help steady the ladder while The Greatest was painting the stairs. But he had half the ladder held up by a cook book and a box of Tide. He needed supervision. Not that I could have done anything but watch him fall to his death when the Tide box broke, but at least I would have been near him during his final moments on earth. Again my hands were paint free. And when I made him paint the master bedroom, only to turn around two days later and declare the color (which I picked out) "hideous" and made him re-paint the room, again, my hands were paint free. It is a true testament to his love for me that our marriage survived that little incident. But don't worry, I've made up for it lately. My hands, my hair, my feet, my arms, my legs, my tummy (??!), my clothes, and even the baby (who was in the sling while I painted) have all been covered in paint. Only the two story living room/stairway, and two bathrooms to go, and the painting will be done! And the garage. The Greatest wants to paint his garage and *shrug* I'm not about to get between a man and his garage.