Estes Park

The cousins: Luke, Brice, and Harry

My dear friend, Lindsay. She now lives in Denver and tackled the mountains to come for a visit. This shot is for Richard!

Hiking in Rocky Mountain National Park. We look kinda outdoorsy, eh?

Brice was wild about the elk, so we went elk watching almost every day.

Harry checks over the safety instructions when he hears we're in an exit row!

sleeping

About six weeks ago, we put the boys in the same room together. Finally. Harry slept in a pack n play in our bathroom for over a year. We even bought him a nice little mattress that fit in it because we (I) felt so badly for him. We weren't sure what to expect. At the time, Harry took about a half hour to go down. As soon as i'd put him down, he stand up and yell and scream and finally wear himself out. When we put Brice down, he'd toss everything out of his crib and then wail and whine till we went in and retrieved it all. We tried being tough and making him sleep in an empty crib and the child screamed for two hours. Ugh.

So, we put Harry's pnp in Brice's room for the first two weeks while we waited for his crib to arrive. The first few nights Harry wailed for an hour in the middle of the night. Brice never woke up. Amazing. Then, Brice learned how to climb out of his crib. One morning Seth got up and found them both in Harry's pnp. Harry was chewing on a straw Brice had retrieved for him and Brice was quietly clipping his nails with a clipper he had snatched from who knows where? Anyway, we quickly ordered a crib tent and Brice loves it. I think he feels cozy in it. He can't throw anything out, so he actually goes to sleep immediately. And Harry, now that he's snug in his crib with Brice nearby, falls asleep right away too. No more crying, no more wailing and whining and screaming. We put them down together and they sleep for 11 to 12 hours a night.

Thank you, Jesus.

Maestro

Brice loves music. So far, it's the only thing we've found that will calm and focus him. Last year, we were watching the inauguration and Brice was bouncing off the walls. When Perlman and Yo-Yo Ma played, he sat and was enrapt for the entire time. We bought him a DVD of them playing Dvorak in Prague and he watches it everyday. He has the entire thing memorized. He stands and conducts. He stares when the soprano sings. And until recently, he used every random thing he could find to pretend he was playing violin like Perlman. Last week we bought him his very own violin--albeit a toy one. And he loves it. Loves it.

Free at last, Free at last!!!

We are done. Through! Hooray!!

Yes, you guessed it, we saying BUH-BYE to law firm life. This past Wednesday Seth accepted an in-house position with a company in the western suburbs of Chicago. It's been a long time coming. When we first got married, we lived in NYC, where Seth was a corporate attorney with a huge firm. We never saw each other. Never. We went two months without having dinner together. We decided if we wanted a chance at making it, we had to move out of NYC. So, Seth has been with a firm in Chicago for the past three and half years. It's been better. Slightly. But the nature of law firm life--you're always on call; when you're on a deal, you work until it's done; late late nights, weekends, etc. We have had exactly one vacation since we got married. I love my husband and family, but we haven't exactly had a normal family life.

All that's about to change.

And so it begins...

Anybody that has spoken to me for more than five minutes in the past three years knows that we have had housing issues. Big ones. Here's the story:

Seth and I bought this lovely, second floor condo in the West Loop of Chicago. Walking distance from where Seth works (the Sears/Willis Tower). We were SO excited. We had an inspector come and check it out (all the while being trailed by our developer and his agent, no more than two feet behind us at all times). The inspector pointed out that the corner of the wall at the bottom was all wet, the drywall was mushy. The developer promised us this was because they hadn't finished sealing the deck above us. We believed them and signed the papers.
We fought tooth and nail with our developer for the next year to complete the punch list. Legally, they had to have it done within two months. It took a year; I won't bore you with the huge list of things to be completed and fixed.

Anyway, one month after they finally replaced the moldy floorboard, I notice that water was dripping into our place from the wood above the sliding door. One month later, it's gushing into the basement of our first floor neighbor's place.
So, a few months later, we learn that we (and our three other neighbors) have to have our front wall ripped out because it was full of mold. This was two months before I gave birth to Harry. This is not good news. So, they rip our wall out and put plastic sheeting up. The sheeting was only supposed to be up for a week or so. The developer promised they would fix the leak issue and rebuild the inside of our place. Well, after a little tinkering, everyone realized the problem was much much larger and wildly more expensive to fix than originally thought.

It kept leaking. The developer disappeared. The plastic sheeting was up for five months. We had no sunshine in our place for the entire spring and summer last year. And the entire front of our building looked like someone rubbed it with chalk.

Harry naps in our super depressing living room.

Brice, not knowing the ulcer this is causing his mother, thinks it's kinda fun, really.

The construction site outside our building. Our neighbors, who are trying to sell, are none too pleased.

Like I said, after five months, we finally took the plastic sheeting down when we realized it wasn't going to get fixed anytime soon. We had drywall up, but no molding. We hired a company to come tell us what the problem was and they produced a huge binder with a detailed description of the problem and solutions. Turns out the condo was built in the winter (not great for brick work), wasn't built by masons, had wax paper (basically) for flashing. There's more, but that's when it gets technical. Anyway, we hired a local company to basically rip the front off and rebuild it. Now, we actually have a hope of being able to sell this place. Believe me, it'll be the sturdiest condo on the block.

Priming the Pump

It's been awhile, I know. Lots has been going on, but i've not posted a peep. Here's why:
Harry chewed up my USB cord and what's a post without a picture?
BUT I am off to get one today, because....
Construction has started on our house! Why construction, you ask? Well, that's a long story, involving a lawsuit and a crooked developer and our fear that posting the saga could scare off future buyers (Seth's fear, not mine; I assume about four people read this blog anyway!)
Anyway, the front of our building is being sawed off and it's really quite impressive looking. Sort of like a European Cathedral.
And there's more... but I can't post about it quite yet.

(no, i'm not prego)

My own little Chatty Cathy doll

One year ago, Brice wasn't talking much. We had read that kids should have at least one word by the time they are 18 months. Brice had a sort of elegant grunt that Seth and I could usually decipher. That was it. Oh, how times change! The kid talks all day long now. Really, all day. A constant stream of words, patched together thoughts and sentences. He repeats things; he narrates things; he tells on Harry; he makes requests; he complains; but most of all, he tries to get my attention. The child talks more than Oprah. Seth and I have checked on him in his sleep and sometimes he'll even say a few words while he is out cold.

Talk about making up for lost time!