Why moving sucks (possibly part one)

We moved!

I'm thrilled to be a homeowner and I love the house. But holy crap moving is a freaking nightmare.

There's a nursing home around the corner. That will be our next and final move.

One thing I really do not recommend is moving out a third floor apartment with an infant. And I can't even really complain because I mainly hung out with Dalton while Eric moved stuff. I did wear him and move most of our clothes down to the car and various other things.

There are two main problems with moving.

1. WHERE THE HELL IS ALL MY STUFF?

We carefully packed up and labeled all the boxes, thinking that would help. Tuesday morning, our first day in the new house, knowing that my hair gel (ESSENTIAL for a curly haired girl) was in a box neatly labeled "bathroom" somewhere in one of the giant towers of boxes in one of the rooms, probably Dalton's or the guest room, where people were sleeping, was absolutely no help. We'd also left the coffee in the apartment. I could, however, immediately locate important items like my cupcake carrier, and other things that I use about once a year. Those were right on top, naturally. We had about 40 people coming to observe our school that day, so an excellent time to show up at work looking terrible.

Maybe if it had just been the two of us, we could have planned better and this wouldn't have been such a problem. Everything essential for Dalton was no problem to find right away, so I guess we focused our efforts on that. Because GOD FORBID he sleep without white noise.

2. You still have to do daily life tasks.

The natural inclination, for me, was to immediately open and unpack every single box. It was insanely annoying to discover that I couldn't devote all my efforts to that. I still had to cook, clean, do laundry, do dishes, teach children, be a mom. and, most importantly, blog. Since I had barely been able to stay on top of all those things pre-move, it didn't allow for much time to unpack. We also moved during the week report cards are do, so I had that other huge task on top of my normal work responsibilities.

Eric really wasn't able to help much with unpacking because he was dealing with insurance after finding out his car was totaled, an immediate drainage problem that resulted in the need for a plumber, and just the general heavy lifting of moving and owning a house. Insurance paid for a rental for a generous three whole days after telling us the car was totaled, so that was helpful, especially with two of them being work days.

We're currently a one car family. We were going to rush out Saturday and buy a second car, but luckily the new house is super close to my job (like walking distance) and we really want to think about this big life decision for half a second. Not to mention we can't exactly test drive cars easily with our need for one of our family members to ride in a car seat.

For all my bitching and moaning, it's really not all bad. There's some serious happiness in my life, despite all the unpacked boxes.

First of all, WE NOW OWN THESE.

I knew I would be thrilled to have a washer/dryer after FIVE YEARS of using quarters and recently carrying laundry around while wearing a baby. And washing poop in the bathtub. But there was truly no way to predict just how much joy doing laundry anytime I feel like, no quarters required. It's just such a beautiful thing. I could stare at that picture all day.

2.

A lawn!!

We are in a weird cold snap, severe enough that I had to wear capris and long sleeves to run at 2pm yesterday. So we haven't enjoyed it as much as we want to yet, but we have a lifetime to do so. Around here, it's a huge deal to find a house in our price range with a real lawn. What doing laundry meant to me, mowing the lawn meant to Eric. Yes, we know we are invited over to your house to do those things since we love it so much. We've heard that joke from everyone and their mom, including the Walmart employee who sold Eric the mower.

3. Our knight in shining armor

He took his life in his hands for us.

My stepfather came down for over a week to "help" us paint, but really paint for us, so beautifully that no one would know we didn't hire a professional, unless they read the blog.

Behind the fridge

 He also was here for comcast, the plumber, comcast again when it didn't work, etc, so we didn't have to take off from work. His help also included just general "man" stuff that he was able to help Eric with, which had the added bonus of me not even needing to hear about it, much less help.

4. Two bathrooms

I think we can all agree that sharing one bathroom isn't helping anyone's marriage. As adorable as the ducky tub is, it was a real pain in the ass to move it all around, all wet, when we wanted to take a shower. Now the duck has it's own tub.

6. This face

That's not really move specific. I did complain about moving with a baby, and logistically, there's no doubt it's more challenging. But anytime I would get stressed about something stupid, like not being able to do dishes or find my hair gel, that smile instantly made everything better. If I didn't have him to cheer me up, I probably would have been miserable. The other night, the three of us were sitting on the floor in Dalton's room. He was rolling around between us and being all cute and cracking us up, and we were doing silly things to try to get him to laugh, and I was just like...this is it. Life does not get better than this. 

Let's share! Choose one or both.

• Moving horror stories
• Organizational ideas, especially for limited kitchen cabinet space and people who love cooking gadgets

That time we had to hire a lawyer

Let's talk about the excitement of this past week (or so).

Friday (April 10): We bought our house! Popping bottles to celebrate!

The weird thing was, after closing, the house was still filled the staging furniture that had been there to help the seller make it look good (it was a flipped house, so it had been vacant for awhile). Since the house had clearly been sold, and was now ours, this was unexpected and confusing. The seller never even showed up to settlement. Now that it's all said and done, I can safely say online that this guy was horrible to us and completely jerked us around throughout the entire process. We hated him so much, although we never even met him or found out his name.

At settlement, the seller's agent texted our agent asking if the furniture could be removed Saturday morning, which we agreed to. Annoying, since we kind of had plans (um MOVING) but whatever.

Saturday: Eric was at the house before and after the time we agreed on. No one showed.

Unrelated adorable baby picture.

Sunday: We hadn't heard anything about the furniture, and were getting pretty irritated that we couldn't move in. Sunday night at 11:30pm, our realtor got a rude email from the other realtor, but it really didn't have any information to solve anything, It was just nasty, blaming us for not waiting around all day for the movers. Our realtor responded on our behalf, basically wanting to know who was liable in case of any damages when the movers did come.

The furniture is clearly nicer than ours. But we wanted to move our crappy stuff in.

Monday: Still no word until evening, when another email showed up from the other agent. It said we would be charged $300 a month for the furniture, and they would be contacting their lawyer.

EXCUSE US, WHAT?



The email implied that they wanted to get the furniture on Tuesday, but didn't give a time or state that directly. Obviously we had to work on Tuesday, that whole having jobs thing is kind of how we bought the house in the first place.

Tuesday: I spent my entire lunch attempting to stage whisper to a lawyer on the phone, over the sound of my pump, but not so loud that people who were in the meeting taking place outside my pumping closet could hear me. Oh, and eat. So that was fun. He was very helpful but pretty much said that if we needed to hire him, we better be prepared to part with a lot of our hard earned money and not see it again.

We received an email saying movers were coming to get the furniture Wednesday night, and if we didn't let them in to OUR house, we would be charged $7,500 for the furniture, and also that we were liable for anything broken or missing from the items that had been in the house for months before we even set foot in there.

Our response was that we agreed to let the movers in at the time they demanded, but asked that before the movers entered, we received proof of their insurance, and for the fourth time, we requested a document taking financial responsibility for any potential damages the movers might cause. Every time we asked this, the seller's realtor blatantly ignored us.

All this so this kid could have a yard.

Wednesday: We got no response to our requests. We called lawyers asking if we could just put their stuff on the curb. Every lawyer said no. After work Wednesday, I unhappily left a message for the lawyer I'd spoken to Tuesday telling him we needed to hire him.

But then, Wednesday night, we finally got the phone number for the woman who had done the staging. Up until this point, everything had gone through realtors. We talked to her, she was super nice, and instantly agreed to sign the liability document and come over Thursday to get the furniture.

SO. Turns out it was the seller's SHADY realtor. She had never told the stager that the house had sold, so the stager was never able to get her furniture out. The stager had then informed them that, by contract, they were responsible for replacing the furniture. They tried to backtrack, insisting they had told her, but couldn't produce documentation. Their plan was then to turn us, the new owners, and the stager, against each other, to deflect blame and avoid paying. The whole time, they had been telling her how we were ignoring them, trying to keep the furniture, and saying nothing to us, other than refusing to take liability.

How's that for a story?

Thursday: Finally the weight was off my shoulders, and for the first time since Sunday, I didn't feel nauseous with anxiety. I arrived at work and told my friend how everything worked out and how happy I was.

Less than a minute later, Eric called me. From an ambulance. He'd been hit straight on by someone turning left in an intersection while taking Dalton to daycare, and they were being taken to the ER.

Still cute.

It makes me nauseous and teary eyed again just to type that. I ran down to my teammates classroom (the kids hadn't arrived yet), completely hyperventilating, and tried to tell her what was happening but I couldn't even catch my breath. My teammates are AMAZING, she told me to get out and they handled everything. I drove to the hospital. It took less than 30 minutes but felt like years.



Thank god, all was fine.

We were there a few hours while both my boys got checked out, and they were both given a clean bill of health, other than expecting soreness. We're waiting to hear about the car, but the air bag went off so it's likely totaled. Definitely not an ideal time to take on a car payment (both our cars were paid off), but we honestly don't care, we'll work it out. We're just both so thankful that's our biggest problem from the accident. That night, Dalton stayed in our bed pretty much all night. They didn't say we had to monitor him at night (only during the day), but I needed to monitor him at night. And snuggle him. And hear him breathing.

Back in September, before he was born, I registered for a fancy convertible carseat, the Britax Marathon (the next one up that kids use after infancy). I didn't expect it as a gift, I planned to use the registry discount to buy it. I wanted to go home and get it and install it before Dalton even left the hospital, but the doctors and nurses insisted it was fine to take him home in the infant seat after the accident. That was the last time we used it, and we aren't bothering to get another infant seat for this big guy. Now he's in his big boy seat! Eric got a second one from Costco that night, which is currently installed in the rental.

That night, we had our first family dinner in the new house - so much to celebrate!

Friday: Other than Dalton and Uncle Jesse, the most beautiful sight I've ever seen. 

My own washer and dryer.

I've been hoarding quarters and carrying baskets around like a chump for the past five years, and it became a real PITA with a baby.

That was our week. Tonight is our last night in the apartment!

Having a baby wasn't enough of a life change this year

Since I've sadly never had a crazy wild tropical spring break (although most who have barely remember them anyway), I think it's safe to say this spring break was a lifetime best.

Moving on up....

We bought a house!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It came with a bunny!

In the yard, anyway.

We should have stopped renting about 4 years ago but we had been hemming and hawing and really didn't know if we wanted to stay in Baltimore once we were both done with grad school. I graduated when I was 8 months pregnant, so that made it a little easier to decide. We probably should have moved then, but that whole "giving birth" thing was taking up a lot of our attention. Once Dalton arrived, just a few days of us carrying his car seat up 3 flights of stairs to our apartment and not having a washer and dryer solidified things. We met with a realtor when he was three weeks old.

We're moving just in the nick of time, maybe, because this kid is dying to crawl (but who knows, it could be a few more months).

He can back it up, and roll across the room. He's like a chess piece that can only move in certain directions.

Long story (sort of) short: a house we loved dropped in price last month. Seriously, it was our dream, and had all sorts of stuff that we thought was out of our price range, AND my dream stove (gas, 5 burners!). We had plans to see it on a Sunday, but then Eric just got a feeling we should move fast and went to see it with Dalton on a Wednesday night while I was in penis class. They loved it, so the three of us went over on that Friday. That night, and the next night, Dalton slept through the night for the first (and second) time! Since then, he has not repeated this behavior.

By Sunday, when we were originally supposed to see it for the first time, there were four offers in, including ours. After tons of stress and counteroffers and craziness, eventually, our offer was accepted. The ride on the emotional roller coaster continued, but yesterday we finally settled!

It required a lot of hydration. And candy.

The house is now ours!

Moving break to pop some bubbly!

He was fascinated by his new carpet. 

I could go on and on and on about my love for it, but I'll just say it actually has a yard and it's on a quiet street (right now we live on a really busy one). I'm just so excited for Dalton to grow up there and have so much more room to play.

The day before we closed, we did the only logical thing - went out to buy tons of new toys. We didn't feel we had enough crap to move, apparently. What's the point of having more room if not to be able to better spoil your child?

He makes it look like we will be living in a mansion.

Best $6 we ever spent.

We pretty much don't buy any baby items new, so everything came from this HUGE consignment sale that they have four times a year at the state fairgrounds. This is the first time I went since being pregnant and it was better than Christmas. We got so many wonderful things so freaking cheap, including, but not limited to, baby gates and bright colorful foam mats so Dalton doesn't bump his head (as much) on that beautiful hardwood floor.

Yesterday I was just opening all the drawers in amazement and mentally repeating "mine mine mine all mine". It doesn't seem real yet. 

I posted on Wednesday about our first post - baby date night and the thought still makes me shudder. Thursday night, we stayed up late after Dalton went to sleep, packing up the kitchen and talking. It's crazy, and annoying because Wicked tickets aren't cheap, but I had so much more fun wrapping dishes and hanging out, knowing Dalton was close by and I was there for him if he needed me (or I needed him, which is more likely if I'm really being honest). That's my life now, and I love it. But I'll love it much more from my new beautiful porch, back patio, finished basement, gorgeous master bedroom, etc. 

What was your home buying experience like?

Where can we get cheap yet not complete crap furniture, and who's good at decorating that lives in the DMV and wants to come over? 

Date Night, crazy anxious mom style

Remember this creepy book?



That's my life now. In all the childbirth/newborn classes we took they emphasized seeking help if you resent your child or are afraid you will harm your child. They did not touch on the problem of being way too obsessed with your child.

Several people suggested sending Dalton to daycare a few days this week while we have off. No. It makes sense, but I'd rather just give her my hard earned money and snuggle him all day.

I'm not sending him anywhere.

Last night, we went on our first date night since entering the wild world of parenthood. We have been out together twice before, once in the afternoon, and once for a happy hour while my mom was visiting. Never at night together (I went out to meet friends for drinks once after bedtime).

For Christmas, I got Eric Wicked tickets. We are kind of obsessed. We had already been three times.

2009 in NYC

I bought them back in the newborn days when time had no meaning and just looked for when I could get the most for my money seat-wise. Now, here we are and the show was at 8, meaning we would have to leave right at bedtime.



I had anxiety for weeks over this and seriously considered just telling Eric to find another date. I had assumed, when I bought the tickets, that in six months I would be more comfortable leaving him. I was wrong.

If you try to use logic, my anxiety made no sense for a variety of reasons.

1. My good friend Kristin was generously coming over to babysit. She has two wonderful teenage daughters that she raised single handedly, so clearly watching one baby for a few hours was nothing she couldn't handle. She also watched Dalton on our first outing to one of those wine/paint parties and has hung out with him plenty of times beyond that.
2. We leave him EVERY DAY to go to work.
3. It was only for a few hours.
4. We were only going maybe 10 miles away.
5. I love seeing Wicked and should have been looking forward to the show.
6. It's probably good to focus on your marriage here and there even after having a kid.

But none of that crap matters with crazy mommy love/hormones/whatever it is, and I honestly wasn't looking forward to it at all, more like dreading it. It was bad enough I had to leave that morning to get my first haircut since September, although luckily that coincided with naptime.

Kristin and her daughter came over for dinner and playtime, and the bedtime routine.

I'll try to make him laugh ALL DAY and then I'll breathe funny and he will crack up.

We ended up being able to put him to bed before we even left.

This girl is not even 13 and a baby whisperer!

I was having serious terrors over someone else putting him down. I can just picture myself reading that sentence like a year ago and being like w.t.f. lady. But when you pop that kid out you turn insane, at least in my experience, and the fear is real.

Then we got fancy and left. I wore a non-nursing bra for the first time since I was pregnant. And heels!

Beautiful backdrop of medals, toys, and Fenugreek.

We got to the theater and I had some wine and totally relaxed and all was well.

HA. If you know me at all, you know that wasn't the case. I was still a bundle of nerves the whole time that Dalton would wake up and be devastated to find his parents weren't there. The fear of leaving, for me, has nothing to do with the competency of the babysitter, and everything to do with feeling like I'm being selfish and upsetting him just so I can die with happiness during Defying Gravity. The guilt is real. Maybe unjustified, but real.

Luckily Kristin does know me very well and sent me tons of updates, which were 99% some variation of "still sleeping" (and one that he woke up and went back down quickly). So it was all fine, and we took off the second the show ended and curtain calls began. Eric obviously wasn't a psycho like me, but he was eager to get home too.

In the end, everyone survived and Dalton probably had no clue we were even gone, and I don't want to do that again anytime soon. Yup, I'm that mom. Maybe it seems pathetic but I leave him ~50 hours a week to earn a living, and that's so much more than enough. I enjoyed nights out pretty much every weekend throughout my entire 20s, and now I want to stay home with my baby. Even if it's just fooling around on the internet while he sleeps in his bedroom, I want to be there in case he wakes up. For both of our sakes. If I still feel this way in 13 years, I will seek help, I promise.

(But can you believe that jerk had the audacity to wake up at the normal time this morning? Um, hello, we were out past 11 last night, can we get a snooze button on this thing please?) ~SARCASM~

Totally unrelated but 5 days OMGOMGOMG. 

Finally some proof he is my child.

Jon Snow is on Kelly and Michael right now and he is afraid of needles JUST LIKE ME life complete I never want spring break to end but also CANNOT WAIT FOR SUNDAY.

Running: Re-training from the bottom up

This is big. I just completed a week of actual training for my upcoming race. The last time I actually trained for a race was in October 2013. In November I tapered for the Stone Mill 50 Miler. In December I took the month off to rest for my 100 miler training, but secretly hoping it would help me get pregnant. Who knows if it had any effect, but something worked so I'll definitely use that excuse to get lazy when it's time for round 2.

Last week, I actually trained for the Baltimore 10 miler. I'm using Hal Higdon's novice 15k plan, and I'm really mad I forgot to print it out, because I love me some crossing workouts off training plans. I even pledged to re-join the world of daily mile, which I promptly forgot after I think two runs.

I brought back some old friends into my life.

1. The long run

Sure, it was only 6 miles, but the last time I covered that distance was last April in a 10k race, and the last time I actually ran it was probably the week I found out I was pregnant. With my average run now being about 2.5 miles, 6 is now considered long.

I met up with my training buddy, Katharine, on Saturday morning.

We ran six miles and did a deep dive into 6 month old baby minutia. It was glorious. The miles flew by, and I didn't even mind that we were running with her two (very well behaved) dogs, or that we were running one of the hilliest routes I know. The scenery didn't suck, either.

2. The speed work

Obviously ideally you don't do this the day after your long run but sick baby blah blah excuses and it's not like I'm really doing anything remotely hardcore here.

To make up for it, I went to the track. The real deal.



The workout was 4X800 at 5k pace, which I based off my recent 5k (9 min miles). The track is about a mile and a half away, so it's the perfect warmup and cooldown.

Well. I'm a little rusty. I ran around the track in about 2 minutes, patted myself on the back for completing my first interval, and was all confused about why it put me at a Louie Zamperini mile time. It took me longer than I'm comfortable admitting before I realized that a 800 is TWICE around the track, not once.

Once I had the math nailed down, I finished the workout, and all four repeats were between 4:00-4:25 minutes. It's no American high school record, but in my opinion not bad for a 31 year old mom trying to get back in shape.

20 miles total last week! No clue when the last time that happened was. Not recently.

Today I tried out something new and torturous.

He didn't understand that the sunglasses had a purpose other than to chew on.

Is there a reason this isn't an Olympic sport? Technically, today's workout said run + strength. I think this counts.

We did four miles, I thought I would die, I walked up the biggest hill, but I did get a "Go mommy!" from a random woman walking to her car, so that was nice. Dalton seemed to enjoy it. He loves being held up to the window to watch cars go by, so this was probably a huge score for him.

It's important to fuel your training properly. I went to Walgreens and bought out the majority of the 50% off Easter candy. I'll be sitting pretty in mini eggs and Reese's eggs for weeks to come.

So, so much more was added after this was taken.

Would you rather do a speed workout at the track, or a hilly stroller run? The jury is still out for me. I need to try a few more stroller runs. And re-learn track math.

Switched at birth?

IT'S SPRING BREAK! A week of sleep and relaxation.

Straight chillin

I might be up every few hours, but I can sleep in until my child wakes up. It's light out when I wake up.



It is beyond amazing. I'm so rested. I've cut down to half my normal amount of caffeine so I'll really feel the jolt when I have to return to real life. I've also been in bed by 9pm every night, if not earlier, because I'm not frantically doing 5 million things so that we can have a snowball's chance in hell to get out of the house on time in the morning. We finally watched TV (the first episode of the Unbreakable Kimmy Shmidt)! I even TOOK A NAP! This is the life, for real. The only saving grace is that the return of Game of Thrones coincides with spring break ending.

Dalton's six month checkup was last week. 

Reason #1 I am no longer sure he is my child: he freaking loves the doctor's office. Shots and all.

Shredding the butcher paper was the happiest day of his life.

My little chunky thigh monster is up to 17.8 pounds. I can physically no longer carry his car seat up the three flights of stairs to our apartment. Even if we put him to work with some of the load.

He knew who it was for.

Reason #2: He is indifferent to eating.

Even sweet potatoes, aka baby crack.

He mastered getting the food off the spoon, and he will actually eat, as in the food disappears into his mouth and doesn't return, but he has no interest in it. He isn't interested in watching us eat, either. When I try to hand him food, he just stares at me indignantly. He puts literally everything into his mouth, except actual food. Aside from the fact that it makes me wonder if he was switched at birth, I'm not concerned. I'll keep offering, and I know he'll eat when he's ready. He's almost tripled his birth weight without it so far!

Wednesday night I picked Dalton up from daycare. We came home, and were hanging out playing as usual. He started to seem tired, and then I realized his head was really hot. I didn't think much of it, since he'd gotten vaccines two days before, and sometimes they can cause a fever (although they hadn't for him in the past). I took his temperature. 102.9 degrees.

Yes, I panicked, but less than expected. Eric was on his way home, and the doctor's office was still open and called me back pretty quickly. Apparently for a baby, that temperature is way less of a big deal than my heart rate would indicate. And this kid was still smiling and laughing, even though he was lethargic. A positive attitude while ill: Reason #3 I'm not sure he's my kid. My go to is whining and demanding pity.

The doctor said he had a virus, so we gave him Tylenol and pushed fluids, per the doctor's advice. We obviously couldn't send him to daycare, so I started my spring break a day early. Soon enough, he was back to his normal self.

The cure was more cowbell!

Friday was our first official day of spring break. I went to Old Navy in the morning and bought jeans. I haven't done that since the weekend of the Wine Glass marathon in 2012.

While I was shopping and at my own checkup, Dalton was coughing and stuffed up. He hadn't nursed much that morning, and only took two ounces from a bottle with Eric. We ended up back at the doctor's office, and Dalton just has a cold. It's the first time he's been sick though, so it's still sad to see, even though he's hanging in there. I'm just glad we are off work so we don't have to chose between blowing through whatever sick time is left after maternity leave, or sending him to daycare since he doesn't have a fever. We are home to alternate comforting him with torturing him with saline spray and the most terrifying item prospective parents will ever see in Babies R Us - the Nose Frida. Selfishly, I'm glad that it fell during my off week. I can gladly wake up to comfort him all night since I don't need sleep to stay home in my pajamas all day!

His first illness didn't stop him from enjoying two big first holidays.

He gets so mad when we take his matzah away.

My little bunny!

I'm not religious, and I've never been super into Easter, but I was really excited for it this year. I think since Dalton was so tiny during the only other major gift giving holiday of his life (Christmas), this was the first time he might actually get excited for stuff. Even though the majority of his basket was books, which are clearly mainly for me at this point (but I've been dying to read Is Your Mama a Llama" forever).

Hey, I have one non baby picture! Eric and I made a glorious Easter brunch. It's now an official tradition, and next year we're hoping Dalton will even be awake to join us.

For dinner, we had enchilada casserole, just as Jesus would have wanted. Naturally, Cadbury cream eggs and peeps were for dessert.

What's your game plan while sick? Generally lying on the couch and moaning works for me. Three illnesses ago, I binge watched Orange is the New Black, so that was pretty sweet.