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My mind is too scattered to function in it's regular way, although I really don't feel that frantic yet. I actually feel more concerned about my lack of concern and franticity.

People ask me how I am, just an unknown-yet-sure to-be-short-amount-of-time from moving. And I tell them that I am fine. Because I am. I am fine. And it's not that I am feeling foot loose and fancy free either. It's more like I am feeling nothing. Emotion-less. So, so unlike me.

It could mean that my pleas in prayer to "please don't let me freak out" are being answered, or I may be simply refusing to acknowledge reality, or it could be that the waterfall is just around the corner. Only time will tell I guess.



This week Ava got her first report card. It was a validating moment for Dan and I after all of our concern and worry about whether to hold her back or send her to kindergarten this year. She did great! She was on track or better with 26 of the 28 skills. The two areas for improvement were describing three dimensional shapes and following multi-step directions. She got a principals award for exemplary behavior. I hope to meet with her teacher this week before we move. I am confident that she will be right on track at her new school.

We are really proud of her!

Also this past week I have managed to convince Luke to wear underwear a few times. Of course this is a dangerous proposition, but it felt like a step in the right direction. And yesterday, when we arrived home from church Luke told me he needed to go potty and he did! This morning he got out of the tub saying the same thing, and he went on the potty again!

Why this is coinciding with moving, I have no idea but I am not about to put him off.

Definite rejoicing at the Colton house these past few days! We may beat the Christmas deadline yet! Actually, I had continued to promise a ceiling fan with a remote for being potty trained, but I was losing hope knowing that our hopefully-new home is chock full of fans. I was watching the leverage slip right out of my hands, but now I am optimistic that we might have this potty thing in the bag by the end of the month.


The moving company called to get us on the schedule. They wanted to know when they should show up to pack our things. I realized that is probably something I should know. Minor detail, right? But it seems impossible to say at this point with still some of the major pieces of the puzzle up in the air. Hopefully by tomorrow we will feel more confident with a date.

Dan starts next Monday. I am debating whether to stay here that week with the kids or to go up and get Ava started at her new school. Either way is less than ideal but I guess I should just be glad that I have the choice. Staying here by myself with all the kids is a guaranteed doozie. Staying at my parents and commuting Ava to her school extra early with the little boys doesn't sound all that appealing either.

Max is appealing though.


He is so fun to squish and kiss and talk to. He rewards all who pay him attention with lots of dimply smiles.


And following the tradition established by his elders, Max could not be more content than when he is with his daddy. The second Dan walks in the door, Max is crawling his direction squealing/fussing. When he gets close, he stops, sits up, and flaps his arms until Dan picks him up. And any attempt to set him down the rest of the night is protested with tears.

If he has the option Max will always, always pick Dan.

Since this is the third one to follow suit, I no longer get jealous. It's kind of nice to have my hands free in the evening and I guess can't really blame him because given the option, I would always, always pick Dan too.

We shoulda been on House Hunters

House hunting.

Appraisals.

Offers.

Contingencies.

Coughing.

Inspections.

Acceptance.

Mortgage rates.

Earnest money.

Stomach bug.

Contracts.

Ear infections.

Unexcused absences.


I am tired. But happy to be under contract on a new house. It will probably take the rest of this month to get things sorted out. I can't wait to release a big sigh of relief, I'm shooting for November 1.

I finally took Ava to the doctor yesterday. She has had an unrelenting cough that keeps us all up all night. Instead of a teddy bear, for the past two weeks, she has slept with a throw-up bowl which she has dutifully filled every single night. All from coughing.

She has ear infections as well. All from not blowing her nose. She will not blow her nose because she doesn't like how it feels and it scares her. I'm hoping that this two-week sickness will be good incentive for future nose blowing endeavors. Anitbiotics and some powerful cough medicine ought to do the trick, too.

We found a house. And after a little waiting, our offer was accepted. It is all riding on the appraisals of this house, and the company buying us out, and all of it must happen within a certain window of time. There are so many little things that have to work together.

I am so happy to be finished with all of the inspections and appraisals on our end. I cannot, cannot, CANNOT imagine what it would take to put this house on the market and keep it show ready all the time. If there is any amount of mercy in this world, we won't have to find out. I am so glad to have these three days behind us even if it did overlap with much intestinal distress.

Now we just wait. I'm not too worried yet, but I think it is the serenity of this backyard that is keeping me calm.

Clear Skies and Thunder Thighs

I don't know when the official start of Fall was anywhere else, but here at our house it was two days ago.

It was the first day in a long time that when we left the house at 8 am it didn't feel sticky. There was even a little chill in the air. And when we arrived at school I watched all the kids walking in wearing their jackets. It was a high of 78 degrees.

In the afternoon, the kids were in and out, but after a while we wondered where Ava was. We peeked in the front yard and found her like this.



She is definitely my daughter.




In other news, Max is really cute.


He is 11 months old today.


He is crawling like a mad man, still driving Luke mad.

And he has started to pull up on everything. I wondered when he might start, but thought it would be a while longer because he still doesn't seem too steady on his feet.


But he surprised us this week by not only pulling up but doing silly things like pulling up and then letting go. He can handle it for a second or two before he crashes onto his squishy bottom and we all clap and cheer.

He won't be walking anytime soon, but he sure is getting brave!

Things will work out

Firstly, Luke's surgery went great. They only needed to patch one hole and remove one tube. He came out of anesthesia like a wild man, still drunk on his "kids margarita" and entertained us for a while before returning to his normal self. But all went well and he'll go back to get checked out next week.

I haven't wanted to blog lately because with so much going on behind the scenes that I wasn't allowed to talk about, I was having a hard time imagining what I could write while avoiding the huge topic that has kept us so occupied this past week and a half.

Maybe a month or so ago, I was already in bed, very near dreamland, when Dan came in and said,

"I did something crazy! I just applied for a job."

I don't know what my groggy reply was but I remember the last thing he said before I was asleep was, "It's in Dallas." And apparently that was a comforting enough thought to drift off to.

Living near my parents almost feels like a mirage in the desert.

Then again, the likelihood of receiving an interview, let alone an offer from a cold online application is pretty far fetched. From all appearances, this company seems amazing. Once I was awake enough to ask some questions I remembered seeing it on one of Yahoo's top ten places to work lists. I even remember showing it to Dan and asking why he couldn't work there. He told me that could never happen because they are really hard to get into.

But two weeks ago, they called to set up an interview. He flew back and forth to Dallas on a Friday. On Monday they called with a final question and told him they'd be calling again in a couple of days with an offer. Wednesday they offered him the job, with a deadline of acceptance on the following Monday. It was a weekend of lots of thinking, praying, fasting, and temple attending.

When we listed out the pros and cons, the choice seemed so easy. When dangling the carrot of living by my parents in front of my face, it seemed clear.

But we did not want to make our decision based on either of those alone. We really wanted a confirmation of our decision. And we got it. It was perfectly clear to both Dan and I that we were to move. And while we anticipate the stress and the struggle in the short term, we are reassured that the long term benefits will be worth it.

Dan is scheduled to start in 3 weeks. That makes us slaves to a very tight time line. There is so much that has to happen in these 3 weeks that I can't even begin to imagine how it will all work out. But it will. One way or another, it will work out.

One of our biggest concerns over this decision has been Ava, and changing schools, and starting kindergarten all over again, just when she is finally "used to it". But again, I know this is what is best for our family and I keep telling myself, things will work out.

There are a lot of things to look forward to, but by no means is this going to be an easy move. There is so much to miss. I've already started the list in my mind, but I should save it for another day. I have done very well at keeping my cool so far, but I know if I started the list I'd only end up in tears. Katy and our home have been a wonderful place for us.

Luke's ears

He doesn't know it yet, but we have to be at the surgery center at 6:30 am tomorrow. And if we are lucky we will be waking Luke up to make it in time as opposed to him waking up at 4:50 am as he did earlier this week.

He is going to get the one remaining tube removed from his ear and have one or both remaining holes in his eardrum patched.


I can't remember the logistics of the first surgery, though he recovered very easily and I'm hoping he'll do alright this time , too. It should be short and sweet.

He has been asking me for a ceiling fan the past few days.

"Mama, I want a cee-wing fan, Mama, pwease?"

I tell him when he goes on the potty, I will get him a fan for his very own room. That, or we'll get him one for Christmas, whichever comes first. And I'm praying it's not Christmas!

"Fanatic"

I mentioned a while back that Luke likes fans and clocks. He carried around a large wall clock for a while and of course, his free Lowe's ceiling fan catalog ("FanBook").

The clock eventually broke and we sent about 3 catalogs to the trash in shreds. And with that, his obsession seemed to wan just the tiniest bit.

He still loved to see fans and clocks and pointed them out everywhere. He still loved to turn on any fan he could reach.

When we drive past Lowe's he shouts, "There's the fans! There's the fans!"

I don't know what it was exactly, but something reminded him of his old FanBook and he begged to get a new one. So the next morning we went to Lowe's. Walked through the fan section to the rack where they've always been. No FanBook. I asked an employee and he thought I was crazy, he didn't know what I was talking about.

So I tried Home Depot. No FanBook.

How easy it would be to thrill my Luke with such a simple thing! And to say he was disappointed would be an understatement. So I called my mom. I begged her to go to the Lowe's near her house and check for FanBooks. I asked her to take as many as she felt she could and save them for Luke.

Luckily, the Lowe's in Dallas still have FanBooks.

And two days later, in a large manila envelope, what should arrive in the mail?

A FanBook!!

"A FanBook! A FanBook! Mama, its so pretty! Look all dese fans, Mama!"

The FanBook goes everywhere with him, the store, the mall, to the dinner table, to bed.

To go with his new book, he now has a hobby of watching videos of ceiling fans on youtube. This is his favorite.



It is so odd to me the number of videos of ceiling fans out there. Who makes those? Who posts those? Who watches those?

Who makes up monikers like "MrFanMan2u" or "ceiling fantastic"?

And then as I tucked Luke into bed last night and watched as he made sure his FanBook was appropriately placed right next to his pillow, I realized that maybe they were kind of men who used to take their fan catalogs to sleep.

And then I hugged and kissed and said goodnight to the future "Fanatic".

Surfside

I am just now coming up for air after spending the last four days in the Hunger Games trilogy. I love a good book, but series like these that I can't put down and engross me so completely really take a toll on our family!

It's bad when you are inconvenienced by your children. By their need to eat, to be changed, to be paid attention to. That's why I won't be reading anything else for little while.

Before school started, I composed a list of the projects and chores that I planned to accomplish once it did. The first week came and as I found the afternoons were quiet, I told myself that it would be fine to take a nap myself. But now the first week is over, the second week is over, and my list remains with not one single item checked off.

It's time to get my booty in gear. I feel like a need to give our life a makeover. I need a plan and a schedule. We have such a different rhythm these days that I'm finding it hard to adapt what we used to do into what we must do now.

Ava remains very tired and gets a nervous stomach everyday before school, but she is still doing well overall. She is getting more comfortable finding her way to her class and she even bought her lunch once last week which was a exhilarating/terrifying idea for her.

This weekend we took ourselves to the beach. We decided to try out Surfside since we had heard good things about it, yet we hadn't been. It was a great choice. Our favorite part was that we could park our van right on the beach. That way we didn't have to lug all of our stuff around, we had some accessible shelter from the sun and the sand, and even a place to change the kids' clothes without showing the world.


There was only one drawback to our accessible car. It was not only accessible to us, but to one very frightened bird who lost control of his bowels when he thought he'd be stuck in our car forever.


I watched in shock as he thrashed around, banging himself on the window, but somehow had the presence to pick up my camera and try to snap his picture. After that I finally had the presence to run around and open the other door.


The beach had quite a bit of seaweed, but it didn't bother us much. The majority was right up near the cars. The water was warm and there were just enough waves to be fun, not scary.

This was Luke's first trip to the beach that he can remember. And he will remember it well!


Ava and Luke probably could have stayed all day, but although he did better than expected, Max was ready to pack it in after about 2.5 hours. So we did.

But we will definitely go back.