15 Month Ezzyisms

Ezzy - just 15 months ago you were a sleepy little newborn with a grumpy old-man face who seemed slightly suspicious and unimpressed with your new surroundings. Now you're an inquisitive, playful, destructive little tornado of energy. You can run. You can climb over stuff. You get through any barriers we try to put up to keep you out. I'm pretty sure barriers are just a welcome game and you love the challenge. You are a determined boy and you don't like being told "no." You love to laugh and be silly and get others laughing too. Each week that goes by you are more independent, bigger, stronger, and have more personality than the week before. You are such a big force for such a tiny little person, and your dad and I can't imagine what we did before our lives were filled with games of tag, and story time, and that sweet giggle of yours, or that sly little smile. We love you more than you'll ever know, and we're so blessed to be on this journey with you.

I haven't weighed or measured Ez since his last check up, so we'll skip those this month. I do know he's wearing size 9-12 month See Kai Run sandals. He's got 4 teeth (2 top, 2 bottom). He wears 2T tops, and 18 month bottoms, and size 4 diapers.

Here are the things I want to bottle up and remember about your 15 month old self, Ez. The crazy, silly little habits that you've come up with all on your own:

• Like waving to the moon and star nightlights above your crib while saying "boo?" (moon?)
• Bouncing up and down to dance whenever the mood strikes.
• Holding empty cups or bowls up to your mouth and making muffled noises, then getting a really proud smile on your face as you pass the bowl/cup to us to do the same.
• Blowing us kisses.
• Pulling every single magnet off the fridge and every single cup or bowl out of the cupboards that you can get your hand on and scattering them all over the kitchen floor.
• Pointing to your feet when I ask where your shoes go. 
• Screaming in fits of laughter whenever Daddy tickles you (he's the best tickler - no one else can get that kind of reaction).
• Crawling into your pink pool whenever you see it - clothed or not, and water or not, it doesn't matter, you love it in there. Possibly the best $8 we've spent this summer.
• Finding the remote no matter where we hide it. You are magnetically drawn to that thing!
• Kissing all your stuffed animals if we hold them up to you, but refusing kisses from us. When did you decide you're too cool to kiss your parents??
• Rubbing your face when you're done eating. You've been doing that for awhile, and for whatever reason the habit stuck.
• Pointing at whatever we're eating or drinking to let us know you want some too. What's ours is officially yours now, right?
• Playing with your shoes like they're toys - not sure why you love those things so much...

You're learning new skills so fast now. You just watch everything with big eyes and then try to copy and mimic and put it all together. Like the other day we were having a new water heater installed. The old water heater was laying on it's side, draining, and some of the attachments were hanging off of it. You went up and touched one of the attachments and it fell off. You picked it up, examined it, examined the water heater, and then kept trying to reattach the attachment to the water heater where it was supposed to go. What a sweet little handy man you are! On the same night you followed Daddy around the yard watching him as he was weeding. You looked around, grabbed a weed, and tried to pull it out. When that didn't work, you started ordering Daddy around, pointing at each and every weed and then jabbering loudly. I'm pretty sure you were commanding him to work faster and harder. You weren't going to be satisfied till every last weed was pulled out of the ground. You're one tough supervisor!

Robin Williams

I don't typically mourn celebrity deaths on a personal level. Usually I find it sad in a general way, and feel bad for the family, but I never feel like I lost someone I know, and I definitely don't post about it. Robin Williams's death has hit me hard though. My mom sent me a text right before dinner asking if I had heard what happened to Robin Williams. I didn't respond till after dinner because I knew it would be bad news, and I wanted to put off hearing it. After dinner I read her text telling me he'd committed suicide, and then I Googled it to confirm. The fact that he's gone is sad, but now knowing he had so much sadness and pain is really heartbreaking. I, along with many, many people grew up with his movies. He brought so much laughter  and happiness into the world, and I pray that he has peace now in death that he didn't have in life.

Weekend Recap: Assembly Required

You know how you walk through Ikea and everything is so well-priced and exactly what your home needs, so you want one of everything? And then you get home, open the boxes, see the instructions, and realize why you hate Ikea. Or, in our case, you get home, open the box, and find 0 instructions, and a couple of screws + 1.5 hinges that aren't even in a bag - they're just floating around the box. Yeah. My patience was absolutely zapped by the time we made a return trip to Ikea to exchange our cabinet doors for ones with all the hardware (and instructions). And while we were there we went and looked at the floor version to get a better idea of how to put it all together, cause, those Ikea instructions...you know.

Basically the cabinet took about 5 hours to put together, including the return trip to Ikea. And technically I still need to put the shelves in. Those should be easy though. I hope.

After the cabinets I made dinner and Joe got to work on assembling an elliptical trainer. I came to help about an hour or so later, and let's just say that was another extremely annoying assembly process. 

Also, check out those "hanging instructions" below. Those were instructions to hang a mirror. Does that image look like a mirror, or a dead rodent to you? I'm leaning toward dead gopher. I just wound up using those no-damage velcro hanging strips to hang the mirror and tossed those instructions. 

On the bright side, we are done with all that assembly-required madness. We have one box of linens to unpack (which is supposed to go in the cabinet that's finally assembled), and Joe has a few bags of clothes to unpack, and we're done! We've also got a few boxes of stuff to drop off at Goodwill. I don't know about you, but I kinda love getting rid of old stuff. I love when everything has it's own place, and stuff isn't busting out of drawers or cabinets - which is not to say that everything is ever all put away at the same time, but it still makes me happy to know that it could be, if we really wanted.

Saturday I took a little mommy break and hung out with some girlfriends for lunch and much-needed catch-up time. Once again I did really bad (or good - depending on how you look at it) at capturing any pictures. While I was gone Ez and Joe had some boy time at the park. When I got home one of the guys who worked on our A/C came over to install our new water heater for free. We haven't had hot water since we moved in. But it's been so hot that the water was lukewarm and not really an issue. Still, it's good to get that taken care of, and now we are officially living in the 21st century. 

About ready to start throwing tools across the room.

My little helper. He's got to be right in the center of what's going on.

Seriously? 

Joe has made great strides at clearing all the unwanted weeds/vegetation out of our yard. Ez loves to walk around with Joe pointing out which weeds to pull. (All of them.) Now he can actually walk around and explore more out there. Here's a little clip of him on his tricycle:

Falling into Place

I never thought I'd be so excited to do laundry and take out the trash, but I hadn't done any laundry since before our San Francisco trip (about 3 weeks!) and they were out of trash cans when we moved in, so we were going on 3 weeks without one of those too. Yesterday they finally dropped off our trash can, and two days ago the guy installing our A/C hooked up our dryer (I tried several times, but it just kept smelling like gas - even after buying new parts from Lowe's.) We finally got to clean up the trash bags lining our side yard, and I promptly threw three loads of wash in, and suddenly it feels like we really live here. 

As of Wednesday we officially have central air and that has made a HUGE difference in turning this from a house to a home. Now we aren't constantly thinking of air-conditioned places to hang out instead of home. We considered a lot of other cooling solutions, such as an attic fan, window units, floor units, a swamp cooler, etc., but ultimately we knew we'd want central air down the line, and figured we should just go for it sooner rather than later. Poor Ezzy would get sweaty just walking from his bedroom to the living room. Now he can comfortably play all day long without dripping sweat. Definitely worth the investment.

Also, our house no longer looks like this:

Or this:

Here's a sneak peak of Ezzy's room:

And we've started taming our yard. See if you can spot Ezzy in that jungle of weeds:

It looks even better than this now, because we've cleared the pile of weeds out of the middle of the yard, but you get the idea:

This is un-house-related, but after 6 dentist visits since May, I'm finally done for awhile!! That includes 1 root canal, 3 crowns (2 that I've had since I was 8 had to be replaced), several cavities, and a cleaning. Now it's just cleanings every six months, and hopefully no more drilling or novacaine for a long time. Before this whole process started, I didn't really have a fear of the dentist, it was more the cost that scared me. Now I may have a legitimate fear. It's just really nerve-wracking to have someone you barely know drilling into your skull. I will say though that I had two really good dentists (I had to go to a specialist for the root canal), and that the whole process was relatively pain-free. Here's Joe mocking my novacaine-paralyzed smile:

And here's a photo of Ezzy enjoying finally having a yard to play in. He LOVES playing outside. 

Oh, and we can't forget a picture of our friendly neighbor. He was a little skittish at first, but now we're on familiar terms. Last night, after we pet him for awhile, we went back inside, and he just lay there outside our front door for another half hour or so. I love black cats, so he's welcome to visit any time :)

We're down to just 2 boxes to unpack, 1 cabinet from Ikea to assemble, hanging all our pictures/art and decorating, and probably another three loads of laundry. Slowly we're getting there! 

It's the Little Things: The Mall Through Ezzy's Eyes

Beating the heat while our A/C is being installed (it should be done today!!) means lots of afternoons and evenings wandering around the mall. And there just happens to be a bright red Harley in the Kiehl's window, which Ezzy loves to visit. He just walks back and forth in front of the motorcycle pointing and oohing and waving. Please let this motorcycle fascination wear off before he can drive.

Another favorite mall game - playing hide and seek in the clothes:

Also at the mall:

We bought him the pirate. 

How are you guys spending these hot summer days?

Linking up with Ashley & Jess for their Little Things Series!

Recap: A Week Visiting Family

As always, Modesto was a whirlwind trip filled with so many family and friends we wanted to hang out with and not enough hours in the day. Each day was packed with visits, pool time, playing tag with the uncles, family walks, and cake. Lots of cake. I'm talking cake for breakfast AND dessert. Yeah. I've given up sugar this week and I don't think my body has even realized it because I'm still on a sugar high from last week.

But I've gone a little off topic here.

Back to our visit. Ezzy's Great Grandma Kathy, Grampa, and uncles were all onhand to greet us when we arrived on Sunday afternoon. I don't think Ezzy knew what to do with so many partners to play catch with. He wound up taking turns throwing the ball to each of us, like the good little diplomat he is.

Ezzy also had his first real encounter with a cat. He's been around them before, but not since he's been mobile, so it was a whole new experience this time. He followed Josie around the house, pointing at her and then looking at us while saying "uoh?" - like he was asking if we were aware there's a strange furry creature walking around the house. Josie was walking a laps around the chairs in the living room, and the first time Ezzy followed her, but as Josie started on her second lap Ezzy ran in front of her and tried to lead the way. I thought it was so cute and smart that Ezzy picked up on her pattern, but Josie wasn't having it. She just plopped down and stared at us like she wanted to know what we were gonna do about this strange creature invading her territory. Later on I also caught Ezzy hissing at Josie, so I'm assuming he learned that from her as well.

During our 6 days in Modesto, we had a belated birthday party for Ezzy with my mom's side of the family, we spent a day by the river collecting rocks and watching trains with my sis/Auntie Anna, I had a girl's night with my bffs, and a movie night with my brothers, and we had a nice lunch with Grampa's side of the family. Ezzy loved playing with his uncles and grandparents. They would let him throw his toys at them, and then dutifully retrieve them. They chased him up and down the hallway, which is his new favorite game. They went to the park and watched softball games. They fed him all the sweets a little boy could possible want. It was a toddler paradise.

Ezzy also missed Daddy though. At one point we were watching a YouTube video of Ezzy and Daddy walking and having a conversation, and Ezzy got all quiet with a little smile on his face while he watched, and then when it ended his little face crumpled and he burst into tears. Saddest.thing.ever. He also stopped midtracks to watch a couple of kids being carried on their parents shoulders, and his face looked so dejected that I had to put him up on my shoulders and carry him around, just like his daddy usually does. He cheered up, but I think I'm a poor substitute for Joe. It was sad to leave, but it was also good to be reunited with Joe.

Our Move by the Numbers

3 - number of miles we moved.
173 - total number of miles we traveled between houses while moving one truckload at a time.
5 - number of times we said we only had "one truckload left."
9 - approximate number of meltdowns Ezzy had while attempting to pack up the old house.
4 - number of hours Ezzy has slept in his crib at night since the move.
1 - number of times we've literally hosed Ezzy down after a diaper blowout because the bath stuff wasn't unpacked. (And because we now own a hose.)
111 - average degrees Farenheit since we've moved into a house without air conditioning.
6 - amount of fans running at all times at the new house (see above).
8 - number of boxes still left to unpack.
7 - number of items still requiring "assembly" of some kind. (Thank you Ikea!)

As I've mentioned before, we had movers come take all our big stuff/furniture last Sunday. We thought that would pretty much be the majority of our move. We were wrong. Turns out we've accumulated a lot of stuff in the 15 months that we lived at the old place. Back in 2011 when Joe and I first moved in together all my stuff was contained in one room! I was renting a room in a friend's house and I pretty much just had bedroom furniture and clothes. Now we have enough stuff to fill a house. And then some!

Last time we moved I was 8 months pregnant, which was challenging in it's own way, but it's nothing compared to moving with a toddler. In case you're wondering what a move with a toddler entails, it means that most of the time only one person will be able to work on packing/unpacking, because the other has to distract the toddler from either undoing all the packing or having a complete meltdown. It means that even though Ezzy's room was the first one unpacked with everything put away, it currently looks like a tornado ran through it (as does the rest of the house) because, well, it's a toddler's room. It means that as soon as something gets unpacked and put away, if it's not at least 4 feet off the ground it immediately gets strewn across the floor, because why play with a room full of toys when you can just disassemble a kitchen instead?

After a crazy week, and even though there's still so much more to be done, it finally feels like there's a light at the end of the tunnel. Getting everything out of the old place and closing that chapter was a big relief. Not because we didn't like it there - we did, but it's a relief to only have to worry about getting one house in order, as opposed to going back to the old place every night after Joe got off work to pack and clean. Also, as of yesterday we have cable/internet, and the Terminex guy sprayed outside, so hopefully we'll be done with our war on bugs. This house has been vacant for 3 years, so the bugs pretty much thought they owned the place. We're also shopping around for estimates on central air conditioning. Anyone else live somewhere hot without a/c? How do you do it?? Seriously? Tips are welcome!

Alright, I'm off to try installing some blinds and tackle some boxes. Wish me luck! And Happy Friday!

And PS - Happiest Birthday to my Youngest Sis, aka: Auntie Serena!