Firsts and whining

Amazing Mother's Day weekend. My gift was a new car!

IT'S ORANGE

Dalton drove us home.

Ha, get real, that would never actually happen in my world. But after weeks of researching and carpooling, we did finally get a second car. New to us, but actually older than the one totaled. It's really more like Eric's, because he's big, and my Honda Civic is small. Which is a bummer, because I was due for a "new" car next. Also, the above picture was in my car. The interior of the new car is orange and so pretty. I promise we (ok, Eric) did real research and didn't just go on color. It's a Nissan Murano and the Today show JUST featured it as performing the best in SUV crash tests! Yay safety!

Short of actually seeing my mom, we did have the best Mother's Day weekend because my first little love came to visit - my nephew!

Showing Dalton Mr. Bear. If you know Harrison, you know this is a BIG DEAL.

Dalton had a lot of exciting firsts. First zoo trip.

There was supposed to be a giraffe in this picture.

First taste of crab. It's important to put down those Maryland roots.

Like literally every other food he's tried, he liked it.

First taste of frozen yogurt. #cleanliving

Again, liked it.

Lastly, his first playground visit! I wanted to push him on the swings, but they didn't have any. He had a horrible time.







Now he's experiencing a less exciting first. First ear infection. Does it count as first and second if it's in both ears?

He fell asleep on the way home last night. That hasn't happened since winter.

His thighs barely fit in the car seat.

When he finally woke up and came inside, he barely nursed then fell asleep again in the ergo. I ended up rocking him like that until Eric came home.

Open mouth - that's when you know they are out.

He never even ate dinner or had a bath, we just put him to bed, he was so exhausted.

In the morning, Eric got him up while I went for a run. He said Dalton was totally out of it, and even when he put him in the exersaucer (his favorite thing ever) he just laid his head down. I was getting really nervous because he had 101.9 fever, and was so lethargic. Every other time he's been sick, he's still been his normal energetic, happy self. He barely nursed again and had a dry diaper for three straight hours, unheard of.

And here's where I'm going to complain. It sucks having a sick baby, and it really sucks to have to worry about making tough choices on top of that. First of all, who's calling in to work? I could either call in, and feel guilty about missing work yet AGAIN, or go in, and feel guilty about not being there to comfort my sick baby. I went with option A. Employee of the year. I raced to work as soon as we could get in the building to get what I needed to make sub plans. Dalton passed out again while I was gone, which is seriously just not like him at all.

It is like his father, however.

Then Eric had to leave for work so I was trying to comfort Dalton while also trying to type up sub plans and text people to ask them to take time away from their busy jobs to do favors for me since I couldn't come in. I had Dalton behind me on the couch, and he passed out yet again.

I just wanted to be able to focus my energy on being a good mom, not ignore a miserable child who wants his mommy to deal with work, but the sub plans needed to be done right then. But then I also want to be a good teacher, and although there's no question about what's more important, I still wish I could be in two places at one time and no matter what happens there's guilt. I'm grateful because I know I'm luckier than most working moms. I still have some sick time left after using most of it for maternity leave, since I was forced to take half of it unpaid. My coworkers are amazing and always jump in happily to help, but still, no one wants to be the one who's always a burden. We just need to get some grandparents to move down.

That was extremely whiny. To cheer up, watch John Oliver discuss how America screws over working mothers in a much funnier way.

I did achieve a major life accomplishment.

Nailed it.

What's your biggest source of guilt right now? I laid it on thick to the grandparents above, in hopes I'll get what I want.

Mother's Day sappiness

Happy Mother's Day, from me and my boys!

Once upon a time, I was fairly anti-sappy posts. I still am in theory, but having a kid has changed me in this regard, as well as so many others. With it being Mother's Day and all, I've done some reflecting and I'm just going to do a deep dive into cheesiness, and to assist me, I've had some wine. Buckle up. 

As a kid, of course I thought my mom was the best mom ever, with the exception of some bratty teenage moments that I look back on with embarrassment. As an adult, I now realize that isn't the case for everyone, so I feel insanely lucky to have grown only more impressed with what a great mom I have. If I can be just a fraction as good to Dalton as she's been (and continues to be) to me, I'll call my life a success. 

Tiny Dalton with his two amazing grandmas

I always thought mother's day was designed to thank the person kind enough to bring you into this world, and that's still a good plan. But today I've thought just as much, if not more, about how grateful I am to be a mother myself this year. It's unfortunately not something that comes easily to everyone who wants it, and I count my blessings every day for it. 

SO TINY

It seems crazy to me now that when I was pregnant, I would have moments, like, a lot of moments, where I had thoughts like "WHAT WAS I THINKING I LOVE SLEEP". I would actually worry that I was going to hate giving up my freedom. Everyone said that once he arrived, I wouldn't be able to remember my life without him. Which doesn't make sense. At all. And it still doesn't, but somehow it's true. I can't believe I ever thought that I would miss scrolling through Facebook at my leisure, or watching The Office repeats, and whatever else I filled my time with previously. Those things are still great, but they don't hold a candle to watching this amazing little person that I (ok, we) created explore and discover his world, but still looking back to make sure I'm there, and smiling when he sees me.

He's off! As always these days!

Friends told me that they would alternate weekend days getting up with the baby, so that each person could sleep in one day, and pregnant me thought that seemed genius. In reality, we've never done it, and right now it sounds awful. No matter how early it is on a Saturday or Sunday or how tired I am, as soon as I hear him in his crib, I'm excited to get him and start our day together. Eric sleeps in sometimes, but that's usually because he's a night owl and he's gotten plenty of quality time with Dalton after the sun set. If not, he's usually up to see him as well. 

I've complained a lot about having to work and take him away from my little man, and I will continue to do so. But I do feel the advantage of spending time apart is that I truly treasure every single moment with him and don't want to miss a single one. There's no way of knowing if I would feel differently if I could stay home or work part time, but this validates my lifestyle so don't argue with me.

Part of being a one car family meant Eric was responsible for daycare drop off and pick up. I live close enough to walk, but let's get real, I got rides. The first day of this, I cried when I got to work because it meant an extra half hour (at least) until I got to see Dalton at the end of the day. Although in retrospect, if a "problem" in my life is that I love someone so much that I can barely make it through the work day away from him without tears, I'm doing pretty good. The one day I did get him, I needed to stop for milk. His daycare is right behind a grocery store, and as I turned on to the street, I told myself to just stop, run in, and then pick him up, because it would be so much faster and easier. But I couldn't do it. I picked him up first, and then ogled at his cuteness as I pushed him around the store and felt I made the right choice. I just love being with him so much.

My little fireman

Seeing my 2.5 year old nephew this weekend had me so excited for all the fun times to come as Dalton grows up.

Cousins in matching outfits THE BEST

 But at the same time, I want to freeze time and keep him a sweet little baby forever. Right now, I've only ever felt love and adoration and all sorts of other positive mushy gushy feels toward him. I know the trade-off for all the fun in the future will be that he will make me mad at times, and the thought of being mad at him breaks my heart right now. And at the same time still, I want to go back in time to when he was a tiny lump of a person and could do absolutely nothing but eat, sleep, and poop, and just slept on our chests 23 hours a day. Now he's too busy exploring to cuddle. I thought I had more time before that!

One day old. Seems like yesterday.

So, in closing, when people said they felt lucky to be their kids mom and other stuff like that, I totally thought it was BS, but actually it's true (for me). Seeing this face every day makes me happy beyond belief, even if it's crying at 3am.

Giving me my Mother's Day gift. What a sweetie. 

I need a nap (story of my week)

It's been one of those weeks where Tuesday night I couldn't believe it hadn't already been a month. But is there anything cuter than a baby in a Guess romper?

First of all, on Friday of last week, we all finally returned to work and daycare, back to being pictures of health. So we thought. Then Dalton's daycare lady said she thought he had pink eye. As soon as she said it, I was like OF COURSE. I'm a classic stupid first time mom all week thinking "weird he has green stuff coming from his eyes, I've never seen a cold do that, babies are so strange". DUH. But in my defense, he had been to the pediatrician and they hadn't mentioned it.

Obviously, as a teacher, you can't just peace out even if your kid does have pink eye. We had a fun conundrum where I was able to get coverage, so I could leave, but Eric had the car, and no coverage. Eventually he was able to work it out and left at 11:30 and got Dalton and the doctor called in eye drops and by Saturday his symptoms were gone and we even figured out how to administer them with zero crying.

On Saturday we finally test drove some cars. But we had to take turns driving while the other person sat in the back seat of my car with Dalton, so testing two cars took like half the afternoon and then Dalton was over it and we had to go home. Pretty effective. Originally we had planned to ditch him with friends so avoid that whole issue, but, pink eye. Although leaving him even more upsets me anyway so I wasn't mad.

We also won a kickball game and I also got on base which might be a personal best. Eric's friend invited him over for the fight and he was all like "nah I'll watch it at home" because he felt bad leaving, Baltimore was still under curfew so if he went over he would have to stay all night. I was like "um it costs $100 and if I hear one more word about this stupid fight I'm done see ya in the morning don't let the door hit you on the way out".  I watched reruns and went to bed at 9 and then ended up sleeping all night in bed with Dalton because he was coughing so bad and waking himself up every ten minutes. I felt so bad for him, but again, not mad. I love the cuddles.

Sunday was awesome. Dalton and I did a 7 mile stroller run with our friends Katharine and Zoe. It was perfect. Then we went to my happy place, Wegmans. I spent all Sunday afternoon cooking adult and baby food and unpacked zero boxes while Dalton passed out on his dad for FOUR HOURS. He needed that nap so bad.



When he woke up, he tried chicken for the first time. I mixed it with carrots, basil, and a good amount of garlic and paprika. Loved it.

Monday night we had an evening event at school, so that was a long day. I brought my tiny BFF, because really if I don't see him after work I have nothing to live for. He likes looking around at all the people anyway.

I drove him around the grocery store in this and couldn't stop laughing at how cute and hilarious it was.

Tuesday was our big fifth grade field trip! We went all the way to Philly on a coach bus and did a walking tour. The kids loved it and it was so much fun. Obviously I would never post their pictures but I wish I could because they were adorable.

Betsy Ross house

Liberty bell. Obvi

Pretty tulips outside the liberty bell

My friend at work lent  me her pumping backpack so with all my gear I felt like I was back in GORUCK on the walking tour. I pumped on the bus and in the bathroom by the liberty bell. Good times.

Also, I was on the radio again (about halfway through). http://www.hot995.com/media/podcast-the-kane-show-ondemand-kane/55-whole-show-part-1-26024020/

Wednesday I came home to this.

We have a leak, to say the least. It's loud. We can't actually talk on our main floor now, because that's all we can hear. And it goes on until Saturday. At least! Then they start ripping the entire floor up in our kitchen, living room, and dining room! Home ownership! Yay!

In order to carry on a conversation, we ate on the porch. The weather was gorgeous. Dalton shared chicken masala and naan with us (pre-made from Costco, no way I'm cooking in that mess). I was surprised he liked it so much because it was a bit spicy! 

He's crying because I'm not feeding his majesty fast enough.

He also had some spring vegetable soup with leeks, carrots, cabbage, and basil that I made him on Sunday. So far, he is his mother's son with his love of garlic and strong flavors. 

Would you rather take 70 ten year olds out of state, or have water from your kitchen flooding your basement?

The best sick day ever

It's been an incredibly sad week here in Baltimore. I've been extremely touched and impressed with how many people have reached out through social media to make sure we are safe, which we are. We live out in the suburbs, about ten miles away from where most of the action that's been shown on the news has taken place. I'm not going to get into all the issues at play here on my blog, because I prefer to keep that sort of discussion in my real life.

I felt pretty safe since we were removed from downtown. On Tuesday, while I was at work, an image started circulated on social media, indicating that round two of the "purge" would take place closer to us, out here in the suburbs. I'm a bit prone to anxiety, and that's how the whole thing Monday started, on social media. All sorts of offices and businesses were closing, and all after school events were canceled. I completely flipped out and spent my lunch blowing up Eric's phone telling him to go pick up Dalton from daycare (he currently had our one car). He did, and I'm sure I overreacted, especially since that was after the National Guard was in place.

We all got home safe and sound, but then we realized Dalton was feeling really hot. He'd been congested all day, but seemed fine other than that. He had another fever, 102.6.

If you want to see a child scream, attack him with a Nose Frida.

We took him to the pediatrician (another virus) and Eric stayed home with him on Wednesday. As germs tend to do, they infected both of us, and Eric and I were both up hacking and feverish around 2am Thursday morning. We took a family sick day. I went to my doctor, because bronchitis loves me.

I normally like to drug the crap out of myself, but I didn't take any meds this time, other than copious amounts of ice cream, for my aching throat. They aren't really conducive to caring for an infant. My doctor was really insistent that I at least do some OTC meds, because she is also aware that bronchitis loves me. She was all like "oh you can just pump and dump" and I was like I'd rather actually have you just grab the scalpel and cut the mucous out of my chest right here and now. Luckily we were able to work out a schedule that didn't involve any dumping while still healing me.

I ended up being SO glad I was sick, because Dalton learned to crawl today!!!!!

He's been getting up on all fours and rocking back and forth while reaching for things for like, a month now. All of the sudden it just clicked, and he was moving. Since I posted the video on instagram/Facebook, he's improved his technique and went across his entire bedroom into the hall like it ain't no thing. Good thing this place is super baby proofed, with stacks of boxes everywhere and all. 

Yet another thing about parenthood that I didn't get until I arrived is just how cool it is to see this little person you created learn new things. Before, I didn't really get the big deal over seemingly dumb, inconsequential things like rolling over. But after staring at your kid sitting there like a lump for months, and nearly peeing your pants with excitement when they do things like track something with their eyes for more than half a second, it's kind of a big deal. 

After spring break, when I brought Dalton to daycare I was telling his provider about all the cool new stuff he was doing. Then I was like "how am I telling you this much stuff when it's been only a week?!".

Just in April, he's really learned to roll over - he did before, but not consistently, now he can sleep on his belly and roll across the room and everything, got two teeth, started eating and loving solids, had his first and second cold/fever, and now learned to crawl! Kind of crazy. Not to mention been in a car accident and moved to a new house. 

Straight chillin

In non mommy blog news, I've finally finished the book I started (The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair, definitely recommend it) when I really went back to work. In January. I've been on a great schedule of reading four words in bed then passing out each night.

What's something really mundane and commonplace that completely blows your mind? 

Pumping and dumping - who's done it? I'd rather die.

10 miler training update

My first week of Baltimore Ten Miler training, I followed the training plan to a T and was so proud of myself.

The next week, we closed on the house, and my training went straight to hell. Here are my excuses.

I'd been barely keeping my head above water trying to juggle everything. I still don't totally understand why, because I know plenty of moms who have more kids, longer commutes, harder jobs, etc, and they have it together, but I can't seem to get there. Anyway, adding in packing and moving everything we own, and running fell by the wayside.

I have to get up at 5am to get about 20 minutes of exercise time. With the move and everything, I'm not getting to bed until after 10, being up who knows how many times with a teething, confused kiddo...I just couldn't hack a 4am wakeup.

What is this place??

The morning I was supposed to do my second "long" run, I woke up with one of those nasty, chest rattling coughs. Twice in my running career, I've ignored this and run anyway, and both those times, I ended up in patient first with bronchitis. Finally, I learned, and skipped my run.

Time out - all is not lost! While writing this post, I checked the training plan, for the first time in weeks. I'm not as screwed as I thought! The first four long runs are 6, 7, 8, and a stepback week of 4 miles, which is what I did the week I felt sick. That means that I actually am on track, for the long runs at least.

Here's what I have done to prepare.

I managed to keep up running 5-6 days a week, even though most of those runs were like, two miles. A few runs were extended, due to napping.

My friend and I are trying to do a Jillian workout in my classroom after school once a week, fairly successfully.

A 7 mile stroller run with some good friends!

I swear, we only tortured them with sunlight for the picture.

Granted it was only 2 miles, but I ran at an 8:30 pace this week for the first time since 2013.

An 8 mile run Sunday! It wasn't even that ridiculously slow, by my new standards. Average pace 10:09.

As you might be able to tell, I really like following training plans exactly, but I'm trying to accept that those days are temporarily gone. I think if I survived 8 miles, 10 probably isn't out of the question on June 6, although it may not be pretty. I am really going to try to recommit now that we are moved in, if still living out of boxes. No promises, though.

Edited to add - I wrote this post last night, and did the dumbest thing ever. Texted my friend saying "teething isn't as bad as I feared!". I'm sure we all see where that is headed. A night of being up comforting my poor little man (Eric took over around 2 or 3). So no run this morning. So much for recommitting!

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!