Full House

Just how big was the townhouse shared by the Tanner family and all their friends and relatives? At one point, they had nine people living there!

We'll have nine people in our house, come Fall. My brother, Andy, and his wife, Lura, moved in with us. They brought their kids, Westley and Marcus. So we have a pretty full house now. It's been pretty fun, so far. Westley is 2 years old, and he is a lot of fun for the boys. They try to do everything he does. Marcus is 4 months old, and is the smiliest baby I've ever seen. I've only heard him cry a few times, and they've lived here for almost a week. Compare that to my boys when they were babies: they only cried a few times every ten minutes.

We have two rooms in our basement that they moved into, and we just share the rest of the house. It's nice to have another wife around. Someone else to help cook and clean. The only difficult thing about the situation, so far, has been that Westley has a built-in alarm clock that is set for 6:30 a.m., no matter what time he went to bed the night before. I'm sure it's harder on his parents than it is us, so I don't mean to sound like I'm complaining. But he wakes up our dog, who in turn wakes up my boys, who wake me up, and I'm not such an early morning person. My boys aren't either; if they wake up before 8:30, they're just grumpy for the rest of the morning, so I usually try to get them to go back to sleep.

So the last week has been a whirlwind of making sure there's room for everyone and their things (we have had to get rid of a bunch of stuff, for which I'm glad; David and I have lived in this house for less than two years--how did we get so much junk?), unpacking, getting kids used to new beds, and other things that go along with moving. It's been wild.

Adventures in Grocery Shopping, Part III

I guess posts with this title are becoming a regular thing, so I'll probably just have to turn it into a series or something.

Today's adventure was actually someone else's adventure. We were in Wal*Mart, just cruising the aisles, looking for menu ideas, and we went to turn into the rice aisle but there was a big commotion in the middle of the aisle. So we went down a different aisle and doubled back to the rice. As we got closer to the group of people, I saw a little old lady laying on the floor. She had some blood on her hand, and a Wal*Mart employee was radioing for someone to call an ambulance. I surmised that the lady had fallen and, as is common at her age, had probably broken something. I felt so bad for her, and also her grandchildren, who were with her. The grandchildren were young, maybe around five and eight years old, and the younger one was just wailing. She looked so scared. The lady herself was pretty brave. I even heard her try to make a joke. It didn't console her granddaughter, but at least then I knew she was conscious.

The experience made me wish, though, that I knew First Aid, or was an EMT or something. If I had been the only one around in that situation, I wouldn't have known what to do. I would have known not to move her, but other than that, we'd be in trouble. I don't really know what to do if something happens to my kids, either. David mentioned once that he thought that some kind of First Aid certification should be required before they let you leave the hospital with your baby. They make you watch the Shaken Baby Syndrome video, and one little video about CPR, but they don't come and test you to make sure you know how to do it. I've seen dozens of videos and papers with diagrams on how to perform CPR, but I've never practiced. I would be scared to try it, should the need ever arise, and worry that I'd do more damage than good. I've decided I'm going to take a First Aid class; that will be a goal of mine this summer.

We Love Countrywide

Sunday was our (as in David's and mine) anniversary. I think it was the Cotton Anniversary. Last year was Paper, next year will be Leather. I guess I've got a long way to go before I get some diamonds. We didn't do much since it took place on a rainy Sunday (that sounds like an oxymoron). Yesterday we went to dinner at Sandbagger's, a bar and grill in town. They have cost-efficient steak dinners. Okay, they were cheap. Not incredibly high-quality, but when you only pay $11.75, what can you expect? We then attempted to see a movie, but the "dollar theater" is now the "$7.25 theater," and since they still show the same old movies that have been out for months, and they haven't made any improvements in the theater itself, we decided it wasn't worth it. So we went over to the brand-new theater, which also costs $7.25 and is much, much nicer, in addition to showing new releases. But this place had five theaters showing Shrek 3, and the other five theaters showing movies we'd never heard of and weren't interested in. So we rented a movie.

The highlight of our anniversary was the big fat check we got from our mortgage company. We got one twice the size for David's birthday, back in April. They over charged us for taxes last year, and we didn't get the money back with our tax return, so the mortgage company sent us the refund. That was April's check. Recently, we signed up for a MMA (Money Merge Account) to pay our home loan off faster, and with that account paid off our second mortgage early. So this month, Countrywide refunded us the interest we'd over-paid. I wonder if they'll send me anything for my birthday...

Our Outta Sight Friday Night

I went to bed early last night. Before 9:00, even. And I still couldn't get out of bed before 9:00 this morning. I didn't sleep well; a little someone gave my bladder a fantastic kick around 3 a.m. and after I used the toilet and went back to bed, I didn't fall back to sleep 'til almost 5. So that took its toll, but I think mostly I was just too tired from all our excitement throughout the day yesterday. It went something like this:

3:30 p.m.: Drew and Owen woke up from their nap, grumpy as can be. I was almost tempted to just put them back to bed. I gave them a little snack and we decided it would be good to get them out of the house, so we loaded up and went to the park.

5:30 p.m.: We finally got bored of the park (I think David and I got bored long before the boys did), so we hopped back in the car to head home. On the way, we drove past the railroad yard. I was impressed at the size of it, so David took us on a tour. It's about three or four miles long, so it took some time to go through it.

6:15 p.m.: We passed a car dealership on our way home and decided to stop and look at some cars. We ended up test driving a Suburban, which is way too much car. I felt like I was in a bus; I was sitting up high, and close to the front of the vehicle, and there was still all this vehicle behind us. By this time, the boys' snacks started to wear off, and they were getting really crabby. Drew screamed practically the whole time we were driving the Suburban around.

7:00 p.m.: We stopped at Skippers to get dinner. The lady working the counter didn't know how to work the gift card we gave her, so she called her boss and he walked her through it. We were about 86 cents short on the gift card and didn't have any cash (I cleaned out our car the other day and put all the change in our coin jar), so we put the remainder on the credit card. We're awesome. But it took a long time and Drew was getting even more crabby than he already was, so he and I waited outside while David and Owen waited for our food.

7:20 p.m.: We finally got home to enjoy our fried fish and greasy fries and chowder. I was thinking we'd have a nice quiet dinner, then go for a walk so David could sleep (he had to work last night). Drew and Owen had other plans. Drew was happily dipping his fries in tartar sauce, making a lovely mess all over his face, arms, shirt, legs (don't know how he got past his tray to get the stuff on his legs...), hair--basically everywhere. Owen kept his more contained; it went straight into his hair. I didn't see him do it at first, so when I noticed his greasy hair with bits of pickles in it, I asked, "Owen, how in the world did you get all that stuff in your hair?!" He was all too happy to show me. He dipped his little fingers into tartar sauce and carefully rubbed it into his hair. He did it multiple times, until he was out of tartar sauce.

8:00 p.m.: Got the boys into the tub. I was happily finishing my chowder while they bathed, when suddenly Owen started screaming. I looked up from my take-out cup and there he was with some brown stuff on his hand. That's right. He pooped in the tub. So I whisked the boys out of the tub before it could really get all over them, and went to clean out the kitchen sink so I could finish bathing them (they still had tartar sauce in their hair), figuring I'd just clean the tub out later. Owen was standing behind me as I was getting the sink ready. Drew was running around the house, happy as can be to be naked; he even stood in front of our open front door and yelled "Hi!" to the neighbors... Then Owen started screaming again, and lo, he had pooped on the kitchen floor. Sooooo glad we have tile and not carpet like some crazy kitchens have. So I chucked Owen in the sink, and yelled for David to come clean the floor for me and put a diaper on Drew before he had a chance to do something similar. Before David could get into the kitchen, the dog decided to help out and clean up some of the mess for us. Well, I couldn't have that; the boys let Vito lick their faces from time to time. So I shooed him out and finished washing Owen's hair (he didn't find the sink very enjoyable. At all). David cleaned the floor, and I washed Drew's hair (he liked the experience only slightly more than Owen did).

8:35 p.m.: Finally got the boys diapered and dressed, put them in bed and cleaned out the tub. I'd had more excitement than I could handle. David went to take a nap before work, so I decided I'd call it a day, myself. I left the kitchen in much disarray (but at least there were no more 'surprises' on the floor), and went to bed. And slept soundly until 3 a.m. ...

Car Shopping

Our local radio station has been playing advertisements for Car Wars, a big car sale where some of the dealerships get together in the mall parking lot and compete for customers. When David heard the ad, he asked, "When is that sale?" I told him, and asked, somewhat facetiously, "Why, are you planning to go?" He said of course he was planning to go because we'll need a new car by Fall; we probably won't be able to fit three car seats in the one we have. I tried not to think too much about it, but it turns out he was serious.

Today, we moseyed on over to the mall to see what they had. Our search criteria include a third row in the back, non-minivan*, better than 18 miles to the gallon (preferably much better, though surprisingly hard to find in a modern SUV), and leather seats (not mandatory, but a plus, since we're having a devil of a time keeping the seats in our car clean with sloppy kids and a hairy dog). We found just one that we liked, and a couple more that we might settle for to save some dough.

Our hunt will continue. I've been looking online and found some lower-priced cars, but they had a lot of miles for their age, and putting the miles on a car is something I like to do myself, not have pre-done when I purchase the car. I'm hoping to get this new car before July, which is when my mom, my boys and I are heading to Colorado for a family quilting party (sounds riveting, I know).

I'm so excited; I love major purchases. But at the same time, I'm trying not to get my hopes too high, in case we decide to save our money and just squish everyone into the car we've got. I suppose it'd be possible, though tricky.

*I don't know what I have against minivans. I rode around in and sometimes even drove my friend's Astro Van (well, it was her mom's van, but it was the vehicle the kids were allowed to take to school; you know how it goes) in high school, and it was the coolest--we thought it was, anyway. But something inside of me has changed since then, and I just can't bring myself to drive a minivan anymore.