Frog and snails and puppy dog tails...

...and ER trips? Is this part of having two boys? My MIL told me that she was once questioned by CPS at the hospital after multiple ER visits with her three accident-prone children, 2 of whom are boys, in a short span of time. We already had our first ER visit earlier this summer before the move, and I'm hoping I don't need to map out the fastest way to a KC hospital anytime soon. Tonight, though, we came close.

Last week I bought a used jogging stroller to replace one I was *persuaded* to give away before G was born. We didn't have room to store it back in VA, and I guess I didn't use it allllll that much. But I am convinced that this recent $35 splurge will get me out onto the jogging trail right next to T's school everyday.

So after today turned into a beautiful Fall afternoon, T and I took our first jog together up to the park and duck pond. It's pretty hard to run/push a 33 pound kid uphill (but a good workout!) and we were admittedly not going very fast but I guess my stealth was just too much for a wee 3 year old, and T was inspired. After we came home, I went in to make dinner leaving him on the porch to watch A do some yard work. While A walked around the side of the house to get something, T got into the stroller and tried to recreate our ride....DOWN THE FRONT STEPS, of which there are eight.

A said he turned around in just enough time to watch T make his descent. He made it down almost 4 steps before he flew out onto the concrete, onto his face. When A brought him in, the wounds looked a lot worse than they turned out to be (blood'll do that) but he was lucky he didn't break an arm, or worse.

While I cleaned the gravel and dirt from the scrapes on his nose (which took the brunt of the fall), forehead and out of his mouth, A asked him "What were you thinking?" He didn't answer - I think he was too traumatized - but I thought to myself how fun the idea of going down steps in a stroller must have sounded to a 3 year old. Like, seriously, totally fun! He just HAD to try it. And I don't blame him. But I realize how lucky we are that nothing worse happened, and it makes me nervous about what else will look fun to him and to G in the future. Especially when they put their minds together...

PLEASE, no more rainy days

If I have to play "Cooking Guy" one more time, I might just go ahead and eat the stuffed felt Ikea food so that I'll never have to play again. And is it weird that I'm kind of offended that T keeps calling me "Sir" at our restaurant, despite my attempts to explain that I'm a "M'am"? Or should I just get over it?

At the front

We're working on lots of stuff at the front part of the house, literally. We recently put up a new mailbox, which you might not think is a big deal but if you'd seen the old mailbox, you'd be very excited for us. I didn't take a before picture. I'm not YoungHouseLove, people. But here's the new one.

It may be a weeeeee bit unlevel, but so are the holes already drilled into the house to mount it. I guess the old mailbox wasn't level either, but I never noticed because I was so distracted by the rust and the fist-sized spiders that jumped out at me every time I psyched myself up to get the mail. We decided we can live with it for now. It was that or drill another hole into the house, and I felt like that could have been risky.

We also just ordered a new front door which should be here in a couple weeks. I never really thought about what goes into ordering a front door or its installation, but there are actually a lot of details to ponder. Things like wood vs. fiberglass, hinges and kick plates, and windows and side windows, and stuff. I guess installing a door on an older house is a bit tricky because measurements are different nowadays, too. Or something. So, you gotta know your stuff. And that's why we have a contractor helping A install it. Because there's not a lot of wiggle room when it comes to installing a front door. And you really can't go without one for too long.

Here's what we have now, which is old and beat up, not to mention hard to lock and unlock.

We ordered something similar, with windows across the top and down the side, and it'll be primed for us to paint - the fun part! I found a bunch of colors I like on Pinterest, like

but I keep coming back to the idea of plain, old black. Or "classic black", as I tell A. Considering the color of the house - brick painted beige - there aren't too many colors that would look okay

What do you think? Well, no matter what we pick, any door that doesn't look like this will drastically improve the front of the house.

So much to do. So. much. time.

I'm officially a stay-at-home mom. Which is what I've wanted for the past few years. So, now that I got my wish, what do I do?

Yes, I know it's only been three weeks and that my house is still in shambles from the move so we don't really feel settled (at least I don't), but still, I feel like I need to be doing something! I mean, I know I'm doing important work here, raising two boys, teaching them manners and empathy, and colors and the alphabet, and the lyrics to Avril Lavine songs, and why it's not nice to stick your finger up someone else's nostril. There's also a ton to be done to the house but it's not stuff that can be done in a day or by myself, for the most part. And although my husband clearly feels that I should be picking up after T and G constantly, I'm more of a why-clean-it-up-now-when-they'll-just-mess-it-all-up-again-in-two-minutes kinda gal. But it's a weird feeling not to have a life outside of the house, not to have responsibilities other than handing out sippy cups and making sure G doesn't make it over the booby trap of boxes and upside-down chairs I've constructed in front of the stairs (which he usually does. How?!) Don't get me wrong, hanging with the boys is seriously great, but I feel...antsy. And feeling antsy just makes me feel guilty that I'm not enjoying the time with T and G, which is why I quit my job and moved to KC in the first place.

DOES THE GUILT EVER STOP?!?!

Confession: I applied to two jobs last night. A was out at an event so, as usual, I trolled the internet because we still don't have a TV. (Don't get me started. I am so behind on pop culture, you wouldn't even recognize me. When I'm in line at Price Chopper reading the headlines of US Weekly, I might as well be reading Chinese.) I happened upon two job postings that I thought looked kinda fun and I figured they'd get me out of the house and into contact with someone other than the checkout girl at Price Chopper who recognizes me now. And, a second income would mean I could buy all the US Weeklys I wanted without having to hear about "the garbage I spend my money on". So, in a moment of pure boredom (I wish I could say it was drunken, but we can barely afford enough alcohol to induce a proper buzz. But that's another posting) I applied. I think if I got a call for an interview, though, I'd freak out and say "sorry, no longer interested" because that's not what I want. Right?

Make new friends (but keep the old)

T started Preschool on Tuesday! It's a class of 12 adorable girls and boys and T was so ready to make a few KC friends. A big plus for me is that the school is just a 2 minute walk from our house, IF you move along at a normal adult clip. If you're walking at the pace T would if we let him, it takes about 12-15 minutes depending on how many trucks, ants, pine cones, etc., we see on the way.

I was curious to see what my KC parent peers would be like. I imagined blonde, pink-cheeked, and corn-fed. I figured that if the girl behind the counter of QuikTrip (a midwest equivalent of 7-11, my east coast friends) was as welcoming as she was when I dropped in for a CokeZero, these parents would be thrilled to have me! Well, most are very nice, quite a few are brunettes, and some actually seem a bit standoffish. (Or is that just my imagination?) So don't you worry, I still haven't found my new Best *midwestern* Friend. Though, maybe I'll bond with someone when I volunteer at the Fall Festival.

Anyways, T seems to love school, which I'm so excited about, and the teachers have given good reports about him so far. Except that he needs to work on "taking turns". I pretended to be a little surprised, but oh, yes, I know this about him. The concept of sharing has been a major hurdle. He just doesn't get it (which I'm pretty sure is age-appropriate?) and we usually have at least one major meldown every few days that involves him ripping a toy away from little G and screaming "why is he not SHARING?". Or sometimes he'll ask to "have one turn" with something I have, like, say, a sharp carving knife, and when I say no, the same tantrum ensues with "why don't grownups know how to SHARE?!?!" Nope, he just doesn't get it. So I'm gonna hope that the teacher with the PhD in child psychology does her magic on my otherwise sweet, sweet boy.

The walls come tumbling down

Today I came home from the grocery store to find A, hammer in hand, knocking down the wall in the entry hall. I knew it would happen sometime soon, but it's still a little startling to see a wall in your house disappear in the time it takes to get to Price Chopper* for milk and back. And, A has since told me to expect at least one wall down at any given time while we live here. Yay.

*Isn't Price Chopper a silly name? It seems so...unprofessional, or something. I am really missing my Giant - that's a really strong name for a grocery store -and I think Safeway sounds very reassuring to the consumer. And Harris Teeter sounds extremely qualified to sell me food. I just can't pull into the parking lot of Price Chopper without wondering about the marketing team that okayed its name. Oh, and they just got a Trader Joe's here and people can't decide if they like it or not because it sells strange things, like Greek yogurt.

But, it's all pretty necessary. Since the house is so old, it wasn't built with insulation. The walls are plaster and lath which have meant pretty steep heating and air conditioning bills because the heat escapes in the winter and so does the AC in summer. To prep for our living here, A came in to town a month or so before we moved and knocked down walls in what will one day be our living room to insulate and put up drywall. New windows were installed in that room and in the rest of the downstairs front rooms at the beginning of the summer, too. All that PLUS the new central air conditioning which was just installed on the first floor have meant that even on the hottest of KC days (105 degrees, 100% humidity, anyone?), we've been nice and cool inside. But that's just a start because there are a lot of windows upstairs...

We did discover, however, that this house was not built in the 20's as we thought, but more likely about 10 or 15 years before that. A pulled out some shreds of an old newspaper that was dated July 4, 1912 and on it we could make out real estate ads for houses with 7 bedrooms for $4,880. We thought that was pretty cool, especially considering that's less money than the installation of the central air on just our first floor!

KCMO or Bust!

We'd talked about it, thought about it, (fought about it?), tried to imagine it a bazillion times during the past couple of years. Could we really make the move? Leave everything we'd known together as a couple and move to A's hometown, 1,500 miles away, live in the house he spent his teenage years in, and be near his family instead of mine? Yikes.

Well, the decision has been made. In fact, it's done. We're here. It's been two weeks. We're a couple blocks away from a real Main Street, and an Oak Street, and a Walnut Street - very quaint and small-town sounding to me. They kinda look like what I imagined when I read To Kill a Mockingbird. Or Peyton Place, actually.

I never actually thought I could pick up and leave. Leave my sisters and my beautiful nephews, or my family and my dearest friends, or my job. (Well, yes, I did imagine leaving my job.) And if you'd asked if I'd EVER thought I'd live in the Midwest one day, I'd have scoffed, pointed my finger toward a map of the U.S., waved it in big circle to cover the area I guessed to be the Midwest, and said "Here? Yeah, right." Oh, how times have changed. And I'm pretty confident that I can find Missouri on a map now.

After shoving our entire townhouse into two Pods, and then discovering we still had enough stuff to fill a third, we made the very lonnnnnnnnnng drive through a lot of states that began with the letter "I". The boys did as well as they could:

...and here we are, in a really neat, old house with lots of space for them to toddle around in, with lots of home projects to do. Here I am, out of my comfort zone, not earning a second income, but without my usual anxiety over losing time with my children while I work. Here we are, living on what seems to be a quiet and safe street for T and G to learn to ride a bike on one day soon, shaded by pretty trees, sitting on an awesome front porch that I plan to spend a lot of time on with my husband, sometimes with a cocktail in hand.

We finally made the move, committed to a year. 351 more days (or more) of Midwestern adventure...