The Inn is FULL
Listen Lady, the Inn is FULL. All the bedrooms in the house are occupied and it’s a strange feeling; especially looking back 6 years ago to when we bought the house and the rooms echoed from the lack of furniture. There is no longer any silence on Bambi lane.
This week we decided to move Rory into his crib to sleep at night. He had been sleeping in our room, next to our bed each night. However, now that he’s been sleeping through the night for nearly 3 weeks, it’s really not necessary to have him next to us.
Brett asked me if I’d have a hard time with moving him; my little baby, who seems to be growing my leaps and bounds each day. I do miss being able to peak over the edge of the pack and play, checking to make sure he is still breathing. Though I think I was more distressed over the fact that we needed to move the baby monitor out of Cardin’s room so we could put it up for Rory.
Cardin, by no need means requires use of a baby monitor, her voice is mighty loud enough to be heard outside the house without amplification. I realize I’m being way over protective by listening to both my children breath while they sleep. You have a kid and you’ll understand. I occasionally also poke them to see if they move. I figure this is also payback for the kicks they used to deliver to my spleen in utero.
Even now, when I hear Rory on the baby monitor I have to stop and say to myself “Dude, that’s not the girl…that’s the boy.” I’m so used to hearing her shrieking voice that I need to reacquaint myself with the sounds of soft baby cooing.
Defeated by an Infant Toy
Internet, meet Rory’s Rainforest playmat. According to the ‘unnamed’ company who made the product, it’s a delightful gym with music, lights, nature sounds and plenty of activities and textures to stimulate a growing baby….or some bullshit marketing ploy like that.
It’s been a number of years since we had this out for Cardin, so I forgot about all the settings on this puppy, and was a little concerned the other night when I put Rory on the mat only to have the music and lights continually turn off after playing for only a matter of a few seconds.
WTF MATE!!!!!! I cannot afford to go out and buy all new gear for the 2nd kid!!!
Naturally, I assumed the batteries were dying. Much to my dismay, I quickly found out, this was not the cause. In my second attempt, I disassembled the entire structure and followed all wiring and electronic connections to ensure that cables were touching sensors, nothing had become detached, etc. When I saw disassembled, I’m not talking one or two screws, I’m talking 20 screws; battery compartment, tubing for wires, electronic compartment housing circuit boards. The whole she-bang.
Listen Lady, it was only after I had ripped the entire playmat apart, did I realize that this gym comes with a couple different modes. The first mode offers 20 minutes of continuous music. The second mode is triggered by the baby’s movements; intermittently setting off about 15 seconds of lights and music so the baby can develop a cause and effect relationship.
Cardin must have switched the playmat to the second mode and mommy didn’t quite catch on to the cause and effect relationship until much later in the game plan. The playmat has been reassembled now. Though Brett nearly lost an eye when he made a smart ass comment and I threatened his life with the screw driver I was wielding.
Toe Truck
Babies are awesome at balancing; it’s important not to waste talent people. Because of such, I have an incessant need to balance objects on my children’s head. Common objects I find around the house are usually my go to items. Baby Ponies, bottle caps, rocks, short people. 
The list is really endless.
I used to do this with Cardin too, but then she started to crawl and walk and my balancing act got blown to shit. I’m happy to report that Rory still calmly accepts my actions.
Unfortunately, not all inanimate objects agree with my balancing talents. Perhaps this is karma, bitch slapping me across the face for screwing around with my kid. Or perhaps it’s just my uncommonly absurd talent at finding new and unique ways of self inflicting pain.
We hung around the house most of the day Saturday, since the meteorologist’s called for record setting swamp ass all day. I choose to unicorn Rory with some small plastic stacking cups. (By far, one of my better balancing choices) 
Brett was holding him at the kitchen table. I set the cups, ever so gently, upon his forehead, and quickly hopped off to get the camera. Except there was a minor injury when I went to retrieve said camera. Listen Lady, we keep the camera on the bookshelf in the living room and it just so happened that Rory’s bouncer and the bumbo chair were right in front of the bookshelf. With how quickly I ran off to grab the camera, I misjudged the bouncer and bumbo chair and I slammed my left pinkie toe right into the metal leg of the bouncer. I’m pretty sure that my toe looked like a backward L with how far it bent out.
A number of choice words escaped my mouth as I tried to move away and realized I also needed to jump over the bumbo and avoid crashing directly into the bookshelf. The Olympic team contacted me about jumping hurdles in 2016. I told them I’d consider it as long as they strategically lay baby toys and furniture all over the track.
I’ve stubbed my toe plenty of times, but never to this extreme. It swelled pretty quickly and then started to turn a nice shade of purple. Touching my toe was out of the question unless you wanted me to go Ninja Warrior on your ass. Turns out, after a couple of x-rays, it’s not broken, just sprained and bruised pretty bad. 
Listen Lady, no babies were hurt in the making of these pictures. Trust me, I’m a professional.
SHUT THE FRONT DOOR!
For those of you who have been living under a rock the past 6 weeks, we’ve been going through a bit of a dry spell. In fact, tomorrow’s forecast calls for record swamp ass!
As such, we have spent time each evening watering the landscaping that we put in last summer. You’ll recall my grandiose introduction of Maurice the Maple. He is flourishing in his new home; mostly attributed to fact that I provided him a vibrant, confident name.
Unfortunately, all this watering and humidity caused a bit of water damage to our front door. You see Internet, our front door was the original that came with the house back in ’65; so basically a wooden piece of garbage. It certainty served it’s purpose for 50 plus years, but it was no longer holding up it’s end of the bargain; for example, shutting. Through and through one of the main features of a door.
After a bit of research into replacement costs and figuring out that this was not an activity that we wanted to even attempt to undertake ourselves, we decided to hire a contractor. Listen Lady, we might have been able to do it ourselves, but there would have been a lot of cussing, it would have taken forever, and I guarantee you we would have made at least 5 trips to home depot. In the end it was totally worth shelling out the $200 to know that it was done correctly.
Replacing the front door was a cost we didn’t expect to incur this summer, especially since we still need to lay the stone for the rest of the landscaping. Luckily, we were able to sell off a huge majority of Cardin’s baby clothes and that netted us a good chunk of money.
Since we were getting a fancy new front door, I also insisted that we replace the storm door that bites me every time I leave the house. This new storm door has a full screen, so it helps with ventilation in the house too. Looks a smidge better.
Sooner or later we’ll have replaced just about everything in this damn house.
Won’t you be my neighbor?
The house next door to us has been empty for almost a year now and was finally put up for sale a couple of months ago. It was previously inhabited by an elderly couple, but we began to notice a steady decline in the general upkeep of the house and yard. Eventually, we learned that the wife had passed away and the husband had moved into an assisted living center.
A few months back, a for sale sign popped up in the front yard and all sorts of commotion was occurring on the street as people would creep by, real slow like in their cars, to check out the digs. I think most were scared off when I stood on the front porch and stared back. Perhaps it was my hollow stare, perhaps it was my underwear. One way or the other we still don’t have a new neighbor.
Since I’m nosy, I decided to check out the pictures of the inside of the house online. SCORE. You would not believe the awesomeness that I found. Listen Lady, if you do not own a house, or even if you do….YOU NEED TO GET IN ON THIS SHIT.
Purchase of this house comes with a free Rascal Scooter (plus one fugly ass couch). Right there, in the middle of the living room, sits you’re childhood dream ride.
LOOK AT THAT BEAUTY.
Tell me, that it’s not the worth all those pennies you’ll pay towards closing costs?!?!?!
Think of the fun you could have with this sucker. We could set up indoor race tracks. Obstacle courses. It could be “Minute to Win It: Rascal Style.”
I’m seriously jealous of whoever buys this house. On a refined note, if you’re not crazy, please consider moving in next door. Though I warn you, the house needs a lot of upkeep and I like to walk around in my underwear and stare at people.