A Tale of Two Mamas
Trying to keep someone IN timeout
Archive for October, 2005
October 31, 2005 at 10:35 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
Today we took Graem trick or treating with her friends Fisher, Quinn, and Cricket. We ate pizza before and then geared to hit the streets. The kids had a great time!
Graem was a walking machine tonight and crawled up stairs. She loved to hold the candy wrappers and somehow the candy mystically disappeared. (From no help of her mothers of course.)
It’s hard to believe this time next year Graem is going to be running up the steps, holding her treat bag and actually asking for treats.
I hope the next year doesn’t go too fast!
October 30, 2005 at 4:39 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
For Sale - 3 bedroom house, nice neighborhood, beautiful gardens in the spring. Wonderful house to raise children in, however, there’s no bathroom.
We are entering into week three of having no shower and have had a total of 5 showers between the three of us. We are still taking Marine showers daily and this weekend we snuck into our friend’s showers when they were busy entertaining.
Today Margot and me actually get the bathtub inside the framed walls. Boy was this a much harder thing than we thought it would be. The whole idea was that it need to be a tight fit, so Margot put up plywood on the back wall in order to make the fit tight. Which meant that it was nearly impossible to get the tub into the small space. There were of course many prime curse words used and after 2 hours of arguing about the best way to get the tub into the small space — it somehow mystically happened. We gave high 5’s and apologized to each other.
Now onto the tub surround — quite a different story. Margot went outside to get the tub surround to bring it inside. Then she came back in and said “it’s cracked.” So minutes later I was on the phone with Lowe’s and 2 hours later they had delivered a new tub surround.
Of course after the morning frustration we decided that we needed some respite away from the tub scene so we left the house and decided to go SHOPPING and eat Indian food at The Commons!!
We arrived back home at 4:30pm and realized …. another week has gone by and we still don’t have a tub. Maybe next week! But don’t be surprised if you see a “FOR SALE” sign in the front yard that says “AS IS”.
October 18, 2005 at 4:39 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
So lately Graem’s been standing up for 30 seconds at a time and using the Leapfrog baby walker. Of course when she does this she squeals at the top of her lungs! Well today, I told Grammy “You are going to learn to walk today.” Just feeling like today might be that special day… I put her about 2 feet away from me, made sure she had her balance and then begged her to come to me. The first two times were a bust and she plopped on her butt. But the magical number three was a success. She walked three steps to me and I caught her! Her face was so shocked that she had finally walked and she laughed when I caught her.
I was on the phone instantly to Margot and figured this might even necessitate getting her out of an important meeting. She was available and I told her the great news. We both couldn’t believe it.
Margot got off of work early (to finish our bathroom) and Graem walked some more for her. Graem was a little tired tonight after all her afternoon walking and only did a good stretch of walking twice for Margot.
I’m afraid my life has changed and our girl is finally….a toddler.
It’s gone by so quickly and again tonight we went through all of her clothes and put away all of her 6-12 month clothes. I can’t believe in two months Graem is going to be a year old.
It’s somewhat sad…how time flies.
October 16, 2005 at 4:39 pm · Filed under House Woes
So we once had a three bedroom, one bathroom house — now we have a three bedroom, no bathroom house. That’s right, our bathtub/shower is 100% out of commission.
The saga began when we moved in — we thought to ourselves, “Oh, how nice, the old man we bought the house from just redid the bathroom.” Little did we know the tile job had a much darker secret.
After living in the house for a year and taking 4 showers a day we realized that the tile was starting to fail and water was leaking into the basement. So we decided to call out Ithaca Tile and Hardwood because we also wanted to add ceramic tile flooring in the bathroom. After approx. 9 months of no water in the basement all of a sudden we start seeing puddles again. We decide to have the water faucet changed so we call out Houseworth plumbing - also, we wanted them to check and make sure that the water wasn’t coming from any pipes. They suggested an independent person who does tile because once again our grout was failing.
We called out the independent person and Margot told him that she just wanted the job done right and asked him to please rip out the whole thing. He insisted that it could be fixed by just replacing the drywall at the bottom. So after 2 months we once again noticed a puddle in the basement (do you sense a trend?). We called the guy back again and he redid the job.
Needless to say, it didn’t last and after having various people come to our house - we decided to take matters into our own hands. We knew it was just getting worse because as I was playing with Graem one day in her room I noticed that there was a water stain on her hardwood floor.
Margot took off of work Friday and we ripped off all of the tile and drywall. We decided to get a tub/shower surround. After we ripped off the walls we saw all of the mold and wet insulation that was behind the walls. No wonder the grout kept failing! We couldn’t believe how wet and moldy everything was and at that minute we were so glad we had decided to do this project and not let it get worse!!!
With that said…Saturday our bathtub had to come up because we didn’t know what the floor underneath looked like and really wanted to start with a new tub. That took all day long. Our friends Laura and Lydia came over to help. Laura worked with Margot and Lydia watched Graem.
Laura and Margot started beating the tub with a sledgehammer because that’s what various websites said to do. They did that for a few hours and then went back to the drawing board and internet. They then rented a big saw that runs on gas. That saw let out so many bad fumes it’s a wonder that there wasn’t an ER visit!! Of course it also filled our house with smoke and the bathroom with little metal dust pieces. After that we had no choice but to stay at Laura and Lydia’s for the night.
The next morning Margot and me started strong. We made various trips to Lowe’s and then at 5:00pm Margot nails right into the water line. I was in the living room playing with Graem and just heard many curse words and a weird hissing noise. I ran to the bathroom only to find water spraying everywhere. I tried to cover the water with my fingers and all I could hear is Margot yelling “I don’t know where the $*#*@ water shut off is *$*#*@*#” After a few minutes and once again “a puddle in the basement” this time larger than the other Margot had to make yet another trip to Lowe’s to buy plumbing supplies to fix the leak.
Margot installs the pipe and then for some reason it doesn’t work. So she calls our local plumber who gives her some advice. Margot gets out the welding flame and goes to town…almost blowing up our house. There were a few “uncontrolled” flames but she was finally able to solder the parts back together. We finally had water!!
Of course, we still have a big hole in the bathroom floor looking down into the basement, no walls, and dust everywhere. But the hole doubles as a laundry chute! And we can throw clothes directly into the washing machine!
We have asked friends to please let us know if we have any type of odor emanating from us from our lack of showering, but the marine showers seem to be doing the job. In fact, we have decided to keep the laundry chute and just use the kitchen sink forever. We figure it would save on water, we still get a fresh clean feeling, and while we are taking our “bath” we can wash dishes too! Just joking!
October 11, 2005 at 4:42 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
It seems like so much has happened over the past couple of weeks. Margot went out of town last week to a conference for work and it was Graem and me! Graem did a great job in Margot’s absence but we both missed her so much! Thanks to our friends Laura and Lydia for your help. We can’t express to you how much your friendship means to us and can’t wait til you have a family of your own. You’re going to be awesome moms.
Graem now has 6 teeth! Of course Margot’s reminded of her teeth each time she nurses because she takes a big bite. Margot screams in pain and Graem screams too because she’s frightened. She’s been eating everything we’ve been eating and loves Alu Palik, an Indian curry. Of course that’s my favorite too, so we’ll have to be getting a second plate pretty soon.
We went to the Apple Harvest Festival at the Ithaca Commons this weekend and had a really good time. Of course the weather was horrible - about 55 degrees and raining all day long. So we had to bundle Graem up and make sure she stayed warm in the stroller.
While Margot was away at her conference Graem drank so much from the bottle. I guess she didn’t have a choice - but I was really shocked that she wasn’t more cranky. There was only one night that she was cranky and cried a lot. Thank God for Laura rushing over at 3:00am to help with that dilemma. Saturday as Laura and I were putting Graem to bed she started saying “Lew Lew” That’s what Laura’s nickname is so I think that’s Graem’s way of saying “Thank you, Lew Lew!”
Graem is still crawling but I’m sure she’ll be up and walking in no time. She crawls so fast it’s not even funny — and sometimes crawls faster than I can walk. She has a strange fascination with the toilet and everytime I leave the baby gate open in the living room I can always find Graem leaning over about to put her hands in the toilet. She also loves playing in Bailey’s water bowl. Of course we have the instant refill water bowl so whenever she plays in it … a gallon of water leaks onto the floor. She also loves pressing down on the water cooler tap, which almost caused our kitchen to flood today!
She’s so much fun to be around and I just can’t wait for each day because she teaches me so much. Everyday she has a new way and different way of making me feel whole. I love her so much and hope that we are raising her to be respectful, independent, and happy.
