A Small Dose of Hell

Hell might be an exaggeration, but a slight one. It was really just the Thursday before July 4th. And it was more of a miserable, stressful nightmare than total and complete hell on earth.

 

I took a couple days off (Wednesday and Thursday since Friday was a holiday). I figured Wednesday would be a nice mommy and Sev day, and it was. We went to the Capron Zoo and he had a blast. It was so much fun. Ollie got sick that night. He's a big dog, so when he gets sick, it's usually pretty gnarly. J and I decided to take precautions and put him on the upset belly diet immediately. We didn't want a repeat of the four days of terror that we experienced when we first moved in (Ollie apparently doesn't do well with changes and poor Lucy took the blame for a day or two before we figured out it was Ollie who was making horrific messes in the basement. In retrospect, there's no possible way Lucy could have made THAT much of a mess. So sorry, little Lu-lu).

Thursday I expected to drop Sev off at school and then go home to work on some unpacking and organizing at home before going back to pick him up at the end of the day. For Friday I had made an early appointment with Lucy's groomer and then we had plans to go to Ikea with J's parents, who are up visiting from Florida. I was really looking forward to getting things done and spending time with family.

 

Thursday started off on track. I got Severin ready for water play day. We left for daycare around 9, Sevi covered in sunscreen, decked out in bathing suit and water shoes, towel and change of clothes packed away with his lunch. I dropped him off, went to get an iced coffee and then swung back around to watch for a little while as his group went out to play in the sprinklers and water activity areas. It was wonderful fun and such a great way to start the day.

I stopped to take care of a few errands and around 11:30 I picked up lunch at Garden Grille for me and J, who was working at home for the day.

As I headed home, ready to tackle boxes and bins, closet organization and furniture placement, I got a call from Lucy's groomer. They had a 12:30 opening if I wanted to take it. I told them I'd love to, though I'd be a little late. They said no problem, so I stopped home, sucked down my tofu blt with avocado, and packed up miss Lucy for her spa date. The downstairs, where poor Ollie was being kept in quarantine, was clean, so I quietly and unwilling to jinx our luck, hoped the upset belly issues he had were over.

I dropped Lucy off at the groomer and took care of a few more errands as I waited the 90 minutes or so until she was ready for pick-up. I spoke with J about just getting Sev and bringing him home early once Lucy was ready. I was down in the Providence area anyhow, and my plans to get things done at the house were already shot. There was no sense in driving back to North Attleboro just to turn around a couple hours later to go down to Cranston. J agreed that it was the best thing to do. We'd make good use of the extra time to have some fun with Sev.

 

After getting Lucy, who smelled wonderful and felt like she was made of velvet, we headed down, through tons of traffic, to pick up Sev. Sev was excited for the early pick up and happily walked with me to the car. As I buckled him into his car seat I noticed Lucy, who up till that moment had been very good about staying on her blanketed (to contain dog hair) passenger side, was standing on the driver's side, facing toward the door. I finished up securing Sev and walked over to open the car door and scoot her over to her side of the car again. She wasn't listening, so I was just about to move her when I noticed the look on her face was not a good one. Within a second she heaved and threw up all over the place. I was stunned. I had nothing in the car that could handle this disgusting mess. She had hit the side of the driver's seat and it had travelled down the side and pooled up under the seat. It was beyond disgusting. I was given paper towels, Clorox wipes and a plastic bag by the sympathetic daycare ladies. I used the entire roll of paper towels and it was still everywhere. I had saved the last 20 or so squares to fold up and sit on so I wouldn't be sitting directly on gross dog vomit.

I got in the car, rolled down all the windows, and got on 95 to head home.

 

Traffic was now backed up everywhere. We crawled slowly up toward Providence. Lucy seemed stressed and uncomfortable. I was walking the line between feeling terrible for her, trying to comfort her and relax her, while forcibly holding her to the passenger side and warning her that if she did it again she'd be walking home. I called J to vent about the horror of being trapped in a doggy vomit mobile in horrible traffic with a dog who I was fearful might get sick again. I had no idea how I was going to clean it. There was so much under the seat and it is so hard to reach under the seat, and it smelled so bad. I wanted to cry and I wanted to just light the car on fire once I got it home. There was no other way to fix it.

We finally made it to our exit. As I headed down the main road, just a few miles from our street, Lucy began to look really panicked. Just as I was scanning for a spot to pull over she hit the other side of the car. This time it was the passenger side. She'd pulled up most of the blanket, so it hit the side of the seat and pooled up under the seat AGAIN.

OH

MY

GAD

No

 

I can't even

I just can't

 

 I spent the next two hours cleaning the car out. It was a complete hazmat situation. Once I got all the disgusting nastiness out that I could reach, I poured Nature's Miracle into the spots (and by "spots" I'm referring to the entire area under the seat; both seats). I left the doors wide open to air it out, windows down for the next three days. It somehow smelled much better but was still completely disgusting.

 

J has given me his car to use until I can get it in for detailing. We have an appointment for next Tuesday. I am hopeful, but in the way where I think anything is better than it's current state.

Ollie seemed to be feeling much better by Friday. Lucy seemed fine by Saturday.
 

Dogs.

WTH.

 

 

 

 

A Quiet 4th

This past weekend is going down in history as the most blissfully peaceful fourth of July ever. This was the first year in as long as I can remember that the fourth of July has not resulted in weeks of petrified pups and fitful sleep during nights punctuated by the sound of bombs exploding in the darkness.

 

We expected some noise, at the very least a party somewhere in the neighborhood, but we were pretty sure it would be nothing like the miserable torture of living in or around a city during the fourth of July.

We decided against going anywhere in favor of spending time home with Sev and the pups. It's a new home and a new neighborhood, and even though everyone seems, by now, to be settled in and comfy, the idea of the dogs being home alone at the "new" place on the fourth just seemed not cool.

We did some work around the house, played with Sev, grilled a delicious dinner and once Sev went to bed, J and I made root beer floats out of some hard root beer and some coconut bliss ice cream while watching Jaws.

No one single pop, bang, or poof for miles around.

 

The dogs didn't know it, but they were thrilled.

Sev slept like a champ, right through till morning.

We were so happy.

It was a glorious 4th.

 

 

 

 

Storm View

Today Severin had his first combination severe thunderstorm and tornado warning!

I left work an hour early to get ahead of the storms, which turned out to be a good move since they rolled in only minutes after we got in the house.

Sev and I sat by the slider to the deck. We watched the lightning, and the wind whipping through the trees, and listened to the thunder as it got closer and closer. I love a good thunderstorm and I was interested to see Sev's reaction to it all. I was very happy to watch him looking out on the storm, appearing fascinated at what was taking place outside. An occasional loud clap of thunder would send his gaze directly to me, but I'd smile and tell him it was okay and he'd say "uh-oh!" and smile and look back out the window. He's such a little love <3

The tornado threat was a little concerning. It went from a watch until 11, to a warning as of immediately before I even knew it had happened. But everything was fine. None of the potted herbs on the back deck even blew over. In all, it was a pretty sweet little fast-moving storm.

 

Sev, watching the storm blow through our neighborhood

Music Mornings

I am a lucky lady. I get to take the coolest little dude ever on a drive filled with music and giggles every day of the week.

Now that we're commuting in from North Attleboro, the distance to SeviSchool and work is longer, but we're leaving earlier in the morning to avoid the heaviest Providence traffic, so the actual commute time is usually only around 25-30 minutes.

This new schedule is great. If I get us out the door around 7:15, we get to school well before 8. This means we have time in the morning, and time in the morning is a fairly foreign concept still, so we are enjoying it very much. We can stop and get an iced coffee and share a treat. We can have a pleasant back-and-forth about the upcoming day's events, we can walk hand in hand to Sev's class, stopping along the way to say hi to anyone (everyone) Sev feels like visiting, and I don't even feel rushed when a random little girl from the older kids' room runs up to us and exclaims "hi, baby!" while giving Sev a big hug. There is a zen-like state that never before existed in our weekday mornings and it is wonderful.

One fairly consistent part of our mornings is music. When Sev starts staring out the window pensively, or even more so when I see his little brow furrow up as his face turns frowny, I know it's time to put on some music. Sev, like most kids his age, loves music. When he was just a tiny little baby I would sing entire albums to him as we played tummy time or just rocked back and forth in the comfy recliner. He's heard the entire Smiths library, most of the offerings of REM, Elysian Fields, the Ramones, Led Zeppelin, and selected works from the Beasties, Black Angels, Blackalicious, Fugazi, The Beatles, Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Melvins, Neurosis, Isis, Mastodon, and a boatload of classical and holiday tunes. He's a well-rounded little dude.

This kid knows what he likes, and when he hears something that tickles his fancy, he bops his sweet little head up and down and rocks his body to the beat, "sings" along with the melody or moves his mouth like he's singing words, claps his hands and squeals with excitement, and by this point my heart has swollen to a size that feels like a warning of immanent explosion.

I love our morning drives.

No Date Night For You!

Mom and Dad came up last weekend to spend some time with us and have some hangout time with Sev while J and I continued our never-ending unpacking. My mom recommended that J and I take a date night Saturday night if we weren't too tired, since date nights are few and far between these days.

We had a productive Saturday and decided to take everyone out for dinner at one of my parents' favorite restaurants. Sev had a blast having dinner with all four of us, and by the time we got back he was tired out and ready for bed. We set my dad up with Super Troopers on Netflix and I introduced my mom to the wonders of Pinterest, once the little dude was asleep. J took the dogs for a long walk and by the time he was back we only had 20 minutes to get to the movie we were planning to see.

We decided to take the back way as we talked about our house and yard plans, and how cute Sev is at restaurants when he wants to do everything the adults do. We were so carried away in conversation that we neglected to take a rather important right turn. It was quite a bit later when I realized we'd gone too far down the wrong road. With less than 10 minutes until movie time, I opened my map app and found a quick save. We took the next right, which looked like it would drop us right in the parking lot of the theater. It would have, had it not been for the giant locked gate which is likely meant to keep people from using the street as a shortcut to the cinema (as we had just tried to do). Booo.

We made a quick re-route up the road a bit. We got out to the post road with 2 minutes till showtime. Police cars were everywhere. We wondered what was going on, since it didn't appear to be much of anything important. Impressed with our emergency navigation skills, we pulled into the parking lot as we noticed a surprising lack of cars for a Saturday night. A kid standing in front of the theater stepped forward as we slowly rolled by the building.  He said there was a power outage and the theater was closed for the night, though there seemed to be plenty of lights on inside the building. Either way, we were not going to see our movie. It seemed that the fates were pitted against our plan.

We refused to be completely beaten. We considered heading down to old Providence haunts, or maybe checking out the local brewhouse. Then, realizing our new proximity to things that we were once farther away from, we hopped on 295 and sped off (at a reasonable rate of speed) to Lincoln. Our original movie plan was traded in for the "what's playing soon" plan. But Mad Max was just a few minutes from starting and the theater was not crazy full, so we took it.
The movie was fun and we wound up having a pretty sweet date night after all.

I think the night sums up our partnership rather nicely. When curveballs come our way, we team up and pummel them into submission. We're a pretty good team, me and my sweet hubs.

And Away He Goes!

We're sick.

Jason's in Santa Barbara for meetings this week and poor Sev is still on antibiotics and recuperating from his awful bout with a sinus infection and ear infection last week. I'm not one to turn to medicine unless it really seems necessary, but the poor little dude had red circles around his eyes, with gnarly greenish goo just pouring from his nose and eyes (it was coming out of his eyes! Ugh). I assumed he had a sinus infection, but then the doctor said it was a nasty looking ear infection, too. Poor kid was knocked out. Figuratively KO'd; not in any way literally. He looked like hell, but hardly skipped a beat when it came to trouble-finding and exploring. He seemed better over the weekend, but now he seems to be stuffy again, and I feel absolutely awful. I've got some sort of wicked head cold along with an annoying cough that won't stop. Kiddie school germs are completely wrecking us this month.

I'm home from work today, hanging on the comfy recliner in Sev's room with a box of tissues, while watching some very serious walking practice taking place in here. He started taking a few small steps on his own over the weekend and now he's determined to master unaided walking before nightfall. I'm clapping and encouraging him as he works through a constant cycle of slow, controlled stand, followed by several steps, followed by thud to the ground, and repeat. He is so determined and I love it. I can already see the number of steps increasing as the force of the thud is lightening.
Way to go, little dude!

Of course Sev starts walking during dad's week away. J is bummed. He's seen a little of it on Facetime, and he's hearing some play-by-plays from me, but by the time he's back on Saturday this kid is going to be able to run down the stairs and jump into Daddy's arms!

We're taking a water break now.
This is very serious business.

We're Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere...

We closed on the 15th of April. After a few days of prepping for move-in (installed new flooring in the finished basement, talked to landscapers and fence companies, had a professional cleaning done), throwing a fun 1st birthday party for the little dude, and introducing the place to a few friends and family, we had the movers show up at 7am on the 22nd.
I took that day and the rest of the week off for the big move. My mom was coming up that Thursday night to hang with Sev through the weekend so J and I could concentrate on unpacking and settling. I figured we'd be mostly done by the time Sunday night rolled in.

HA!
HAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

I should have known how completely off that estimate was once I had finally processed the shock of the actual move time. I dropped Sev off at school at 7am, grabbed a couple iced coffees and headed back to Pawtucket to see the big truck in front of the house and all our stuff being loaded in. J and I ran around making last minute decisions about what would stay at the house to be given away/consigned or tossed, and where we would store those items. We were doing our best to sweep up and clean out rooms as they were emptied.

I had a mental estimate put together in my head that involved having the truck at the house in North Attleboro for unloading somewhere around 1. It was just about 2 when the last of the Pawtucket homestead was brought to the truck. I was off by a little bit, especially considering that the guys had to now go and pull everything from the storage space that was holding my keepables from my house in Providence. I mentally re-estimated, assuming we'd at least have everything unloaded by 5, so we'd have the evening to start unpacking and getting settled. What a long day it was going to be.

We encouraged the movers to stop and get some lunch on the way to the storage space and said we'd be over there within a half hour. We were at the storage space within 25 minutes and the truck was already there waiting. When we opened the unit everyone's jaws dropped as we were reminded just how completely packed the thing was. The movers looked at the space left in the truck, looked at the stuff in the storage unit and assured us they could fit it all. J and I were not so sure, but the guys were working miracles, so we crossed our fingers and headed to the house in NA to unload what we'd stuffed into our cars, assuming we could make another trip before the truck showed up at the new house.

A little before 5 I decided to go get Sev. The truck had just pulled into the driveway and when they opened the back I wanted to cry. The entire truck was packed top to bottom, front to back. They packed it so well that it would have been hard to find a place to fit a blade of grass. There was no way we'd be done unloading until at least 7 and that would be a 12 hour day!

Sev and I got back just a little after 6. J had ordered pizza for the guys and the truck was about 1/3 empty. 7 was looking wishful. Sev's room was top priority and little by little the furniture and bedding were making their way in. The crib was located around 8:30 and despite help assembling it from the movers, a fairly important bolt was nowhere to be found. The focus then shifted to finding his pack and play since it was way past bed time and the crib wasn't looking hopeful.
The only safe place I could find to keep my overtired, fast moving Sev contained was the closet in the master bedroom. I used the box of scarves I'd found to make a cozy place for us to sleep. Sev was way too interested in exploring. Sleep was not happening. Pack and play was located and set up around 9:30. By 10 the little guy was finally asleep.

It was 11pm when the movers were finally driving away. I was floored.
Then I saw the garage. I wanted to cry.
We, collectively, have WAY too much stuff.
We vowed to purge at least a third of it all, hopefully closer to half.

We have a drive-in house. It's built on a bit of a hill so the basement level is half two car garage, half finished basement. The two car garage is a good size. There is plenty of room for two cars and a good amount of storage. When we woke up Thursday morning and went down to the garage to start tackling boxes, the sight was a daunting one. Much like the truck, it was boxes, bins and not-sure-where-we're-putting-it-yet furniture piled floor to ceiling. At least we had a path from one end to the other. It was just .. so. much. stuff.

We wasted a whole day Friday at the DMV switching registrations and licenses. We did some shopping for house stuff we needed, and we took my mom and Sev to dinner Saturday night. The rest of those 4 days were spent unpacking and organizing. We moved things around to create a section for give-aways, an area for sell/consign, a place for garbage, and a huge stack of cardboard. It still looks like hell down there. After my poor job of predicting moving expectations, I'm re-stating my estimate for completion of unpacking from mid-May to sometime in 2016.
Ugh.