Family Fuller

Holden had his first turn in the high chair a few days ago. We haven’t started solid foods yet, but we will in the next week or so. I guess we are going to have to let him cry it out soon too because last night was not pretty. I think we were up every hour and Chuck is on his way to London right now so he needed rest and so did I as I am going to have to be the only soother for the next few days.

On top of that our new flat screen TV that we got 2 weeks ago broke. We got the warranty/service plan from Best Buy and they said they could come out to look at it September 10th. September 10th? What did I pay $150 for? So our new TV could sit and I could listen to Colin ask 100 times a day why it wasn’t working for a whole month? So after dropping Chuck off at the airport I lugged the huge box back to Best Buy in the rain with both kids. Since I had to do that I figured we deserved and upgrade so we got the 40 inch instead of the 32. And then the cable was out.

After that I thought we needed to go to Trader Joe’s for some groceries…huge mistake. It was so crowded and not kid friendly at all, unlike the A2 Trader Joes. Colin was running all over saying “how about these? This looks good.” I turned around and he was running his hands all over the raw meat section while nearly getting run over by a cart.

All in all though, Colin was very good all day. In the car he was trying to read something in the back seat and he kept saying very politely “Mommy, could you stop so I can read this?” Finally he said “Mommy it is really hard to read while you are driving and you keep driving. You are making me crazy.”

Colin’s new “sandbox” - idea compliments of my friend Kristin back in A2 - thanks

Chuck took lots of “blog notes” while we were on vacation out east so I will let him blog about that one. I will tackle the move because, and I think Chuck would agree, I had it the hardest being a single mom for about 2/3 weeks.

We got back from our vacation late Sunday night the 15th of July. Chuck’s brother Fletcher happened to be in town then so we spent most of Monday recovering and hanging out with him. Tuesday Chuck spent most of the day getting ready to fly to Seattle to start his job the next day. He left Tuesday night and the house was not packed, so what did I do? Wandered around for 2 days wondering how the hell I was going to pack the whole thing while watching 2 kids, the younger of whom decided he didn’t like to sleep anymore and if he did it was only going to be right next to mommy. So that Friday I drove up north to see my mom.

It was her, let’s just say 39th birthday, and therefore I also brought my 92 year old grandma along for the ride. Oh, and I had to go pick her up, which added 2 hours to the already 5 hour trip. So I drove up north with her, 2 kids and a dog. It went OK until the last hour when Holden cried non-stop. When we got to my moms my grandma said “Colin is very well behaved, but that baby just cries and cries” Never mind he had been in the car for 7 hours. We had a good dinner and true to my mom’s side of the family, my grandma decided to go back home with my aunt the next morning. The rest of the weekend was good, but I was getting increasing freaked out by the amount of packing I had to do. I was going back Monday morning, Chuck got back Wed AM and we had to have the whole house packed and cleaned that night. My mom came to the rescue and drove back down with me to help - thank you mom! (Oh, and a shout out to Amy and Laura for coming over to pack the week before and Jen for taking the kids for a morning - couldn’t have done it without you)

We packed for 2 days. My dad came over on that Tuesday and true to form immediately started packing up the POD we rented. I had to be careful what I put where because if it was in the dining room he grabbed it and put it in the POD. I had to pack for the 2 weeks we had before we left, the temp house we rented and then storage - it was a mess. When Chuck got back we barely even talked about his job because it was work, work, work all day. We closed on the house and in the middle of it all I took Holden to the Dr. I thought he had some swelling in his groin, turns out it was just fat…good way to waste an hour
Through it all I wasn’t emotional, except when my mom left, until that night when my friend Laura came over to take our rug. Colin started getting all upset saying “Don’t. Don’t take my rug. Don’t take it.” “I want to stay. This is my house.” Then I lost it. We still had work to do though so we all pulled it together and cleaned the house. Our friend Dave drove us out to my Dad’s around 9:30 PM. It was a long day.

Chuck got up the next morning and left for Seattle. That was another rough morning because Colin kept saying “Daddy, don’t go. I want to go with you. Stay here, don’t go to Seattle.” Then after he left Colin kept asking me where his daddy was.

Colin, Holden and I stayed at my Dad’s for 10 days. I thought it was going to be hard after that first day, but it ended up being a lot of fun. We got to say goodbye to our friends in Ann Arbor and did fun stuff with Grandpa. Colin went to the tractor show with Grandpa, we went to the Henry Ford Museum, helped Grandpa build his barn and played with cousins in the back yard.

We flew to Seattle on Saturday. The boys were really well behaved on the plane but it was still a very, very long day. Traveling by yourself with a baby and a 3 year old is rough. We practically had to strip in security. They even made Colin take his shoes off. I was sweating buckets by the time we got to the plane. Then I had to hold Holden the whole time and of course there was no place to change him, so I am in the tiny bathroom with Colin straddling Holden who is laying on the top the toilet while I crouch in the space there is left. I was never so happy to see Chuck. Colin was looking for daddy around every corner.

On the ride home Colin kept saying “Oh Seattle has trees. Oh Seattle has houses. How many houses? Daddy, count the houses. Seattle has stop signs. Wow.” When we got to our little rental Sevi greeted us and Colin instantly thought it was her house. So now we have been calling it “Sevi’s house.” We were here for a couple days without furniture and thankfully our friends Colleen and Ian made us dinner that first night. Now we are pretty settled. I still feel like we are on vacation - I can’t believe we live here now, but I am really excited. Yesterday Colin said “I like living in Seattle” and he has barely left the house so far, we haven’t done one entertaining thing yet.

This is our POD - everything we own fit in here, can you believe it? We still got it Chuck - small spaces
I have a lot of little Colinisms and Holden notes but those will have to be another entry…it’s late and I am tired. In the future I would like to post every day if possible…that would be great for the grandparents…I will try
Jess

No ifs, ands, or buts about it, we’ve dropped the ball on the blog. It’s now about 2 months since we’ve posted, but we’ve got some reasonably good excuses. As in we were on the road for vacation for 2+ weeks, then had to get back and pack up the whole house while I went back and forth to start working in Seattle, followed by me driving out to Seattle while Jess stayed with the boys at her Dad’s house, followed by moving into a new place and waiting for our stuff to arrive (it did, yesterday).

So we’re in the process of getting settled in Seattle - we’ll have an internet connection at home on Thursday, so I’d expect a flurry of posts through the rest of August (why am I promising that?). We’ve got several queued up, including a vacation bonanza of pictures and stories, followed by the various ups and downs of the move. And of course Colin is now discovering Seattle, which should provide loads of new material.

Stay tuned.