Elijah getting checked out by Dr. Lewin

Today both boys are sick! Poor things - they have really snotty noses and Rowan is just coughing like crazy. We scheduled them to take them to daycare, but couldn’t because of the sickness. It’s not too bad, they are pretty much normal and not too fussy. We got one call today from a realtor that stopped by in the morning but didn’t go inside, I don’t know why. It’s kind of disappointing, but the true test will be over the weekend I guess. Elijah had his last appointment with the cardiologist today. We all went, Michael stayed with Rowan in the waiting area and I took Elijah to xray. It was really hard because I had to hold him down and he’s very strong!

Getting an EKG reading

The one that they took on his back was fine, but for the one that they took on his side, I had to hold his arms up over his head and that’s hard when you have a screaming baby that doesn’t want his arms over his head. But it was over in a second. The doctor gave Elijah a clean bill of health, said he had a really strong heart and doesn’t anticipate anything going wrong. He will write up a detailed summary for our doctor in Germany. He also asked us to keep him on our Christmas newsletter list, which was nice of him to say!

We went home and we were both so tired! Michael took a nap before dinner and I fell asleep after (at around 8pm). I fed them broccoli for dinner, and once again, Elijah loved it and Rowan took a couple bites and refused. Michael’s star wars toys are finally on ebay, and on the first day, they have almost all been bid on, some have already doubled in price! It was so worth taking that stuff to the ebay store. They made it all nice and wrote very detailed descriptions. I don’t think we would’ve been able to do the same. The only complaint people have with them is that their shipping charges are on the high side.

Early this morning, I was on the computer (still have a weird schedule) and heard a really loud BOING coming from the boys’ bedroom. It turns out that at 3AM, Elijah went travelling around and found the wire door stopper thing and was playing with it. I let out a little chuckle.

Today the phone was ringing off the hook! Most of them NON-house related!!! There was a realtor that stopped by in the morning to preview the house for her client. Then there was a guy who knocked on the door and wanted to see the house. I had to ask him to come back with a realtor. We have a hard and fast rule that no one will enter without a realtor (unless we know them). John told us enough stories that made us stick to the rules. We have the key thing on our door so they should be able to enter without us being there. I put a note on the door telling them to come in using that key, even though we are home. The guy came back with his realtor and checked out the house. He liked it enough to come back in the evening with his wife. Possible buyer? Hope so! In the afternoon, there was another couple that seemed interested. Their realtor whispered to me that they were very interested and might come back. Hope so.

Today for lunch, I fed the boys their first vegetable, broccoli. They both were a little weirded out at first, but Elijah liked it and Rowan hated it. That surprised me because Rowan usually will eat anything and Elijah is the one that is more picky. Rowan took 2 bites and refused to eat any more. Elijah wasn’t super excited about it (like how they are with bananas) but he kept opening his mouth for more, which is good.

The Haley Clan

We went to the Haleys’ for dinner (in Tacoma). We all packed up and drove down. The traffic was bad in Redmond/Bellevue, but eased up the further away we got. They are always fun to talk to and of course they served an amazing meal! Nancy introduced me to salted radishes on buttered bread - the way the French eat them. Mmmmm… I’ve never had radishes before, but I really like them, what a great snack! We talked and talked and wished we didn’t have to go! The boys were passed out on the bedroom floor, Rowan surprised me - he was sleeping on his stomach. They didn’t like being woken up at all! Elijah falls asleep very easily but wakes up at every little sound or light whereas Rowan will take longer to fall asleep but when he does, he is out, out, out.

When we got home, we checked the prices to fly to Munich and it turns out it wasn’t as expensive as I thought. So, Michael is going back to Munich to secure the apartment that we like. I wish I could go, but I think Michael’s german skills will be very useful. We called the realtor guy and he agreed to hold the place for us until then. Michael will also meet the people who currently are renting it, with whom I’ve been emailing (they have twin girls). We are so excited!

So, we are on the market today! The listing didn’t show up in the system until around mid-afternoon. The pictures came out really good, I hope it sells quickly. Kim and Tami came early in the morning to clean and they were super shocked at how empty and clean everything was. The first question everyone asks is “where is all your stuff”! It’s pretty amazing how much stuff we were able to sell/donate/throw away. Also, all of the bags of trash were taken away as well, thank goodness. We had a LOT of trash bags out there. The moving lady also came and we received the good news that we will probably be able to fit in the 20 foot container. That is great news because it will save us around $5k. I took the boys to Pro Club again and also ran a bunch of errands. It’s amazing how much you can get done when you don’t have 2 babies hanging off you! In the afternoon, we gave ourselves a break and actually went to a movie. We’ve been trying forever to go to one (since my parents were here) but have always been too tired. We almost didn’t make it today, but we forced ourselves. We saw “The Constant Gardener”. It was ok. In the evening, our friend Carlos came over to take some artwork. We have way too much and would like people we know to take care of it for us. Michael got carried away with talking about mountains and I fell asleep on the couch.

Today we finished cleaning up (all except my office) and the photographer came in the afternoon. I can’t wait to see the pictures! I know everyone will be shocked at how empty our house is! Michael took the boys to the Pro Club again today. We had lots of people coming over to pick up stuff that we sold. Craigslist is a very useful tool! It’s a weird thing though, you can list something for $5 and get absolutely no responses, then you list something for free and then you get 20 people emailing. I guess it’s because the free things get their own special section and lots of people just read those.

The Tokumis’ came over and brought dinner for us (Thai Ginger). Misha was a little doll, as usual. It’s so funny when she sees the boys because she will touch them and say “awwwww” (like when you see something cute). She was a little scared of Sainty, which surprised me. Shari told me that she had a traumatic incident with another black cat. We tried to show her how friendly Sainty is, but she still was scared. We watched parts of Napoleon Dynamite since neither of them have seen it but they’ve heard a lot about it. I swear, that movie gets funnier and funnier. I love the line “You got shocks, pegs…LUCKY!”

Our favorite thing to do now is see where the boys are after sleeping. We put them down on their futons at night and in the morning (or even a couple of hours later), they are in weird places. This evening I heard this “ticking” noise and found out that it was Elijah - he pulled out the cord for the lamp and was hitting it against the wall. He is getting really good at getting out of his swaddle and travelling around. They are not crawling on their knees yet but they do get around! Rowan is usally smashed up against the wall sideways. Sometimes he gets out of his swaddle, but mostly he just pushes with his feet so he ends up against the wall that is nearest to his head. It’s so funny too because sometimes at night they will talk to each other and you can hear them laughing. Too cute! Of course, if you open the door to check on them, they will start crying and not stop, so we just have to imagine what they’re doing. It would be nice to have one of those video monitors now!

Today was probably the most intense day ever for cleaning. We have the photographer coming tomorrow so everything has to be ready by then. We were supposed to go to the eye doctor in the afternoon, but instead what we did was put the boys in day care and really worked hard! Daycare is such a luxury! We even managed to sell the elliptical trainer to really nice people. The wife was a photographer and she saw my DayLab Jr. on my shelf and I sold it to her. She was more excited about that than about the exercise machine. We also had Lorna and her family come over to take some stuff. It feels good to get rid of so much stuff!

Posts are going to get boring for the next couple of days because we’re busy cleaning up our house. Today Reynaldo the landscaper and his crew came and cleaned up our yard. It looks REALLY good now. They are not quite done, they still have to get a little more bark to cover the front. This time I did like 2 or 3 walk throughs to make sure he does everything. The last few times we didn’t really do walkthroughs, so I noticed he missed things here and there. We avoided leaving the house too often because we need to concentrate all of our efforts into cleaning/straightening up. We actually accomplished a lot! The boys bedroom is cleaned out, only stuff in the closet needs to be taken out. The big pieces of furniture in my office has been removed and I’m trying to control the clutter. There are so many things that I need over the next month that I can’t pack everything away. Moving is cleansing!

Michael and Jimmy, the guitar gods!

So we left Shaun’s house at 4:15am to the airport. We went to Phoenix for the day to visit a friend and to take care of some business, I won’t bother you with the boring details. When we were near the airport, I realized that I forgot my pumping supplies! So, the first stop we did was to the Good Samaritan hospital, where the nice lactation nurses helped me out. They gave me the pump parts (single pump only), and let me use their pumps! I was shocked that they had the Symphony breast pumps throughout the hospital! While I was pumping, I watched “Napoleon Dynamite”. I think that movie is funnier the 2nd time you watch it. After we were done with that, we visited with my old guitar teacher, Jimmy. He was in a band called Sacred Rite when I was taking lessons. He is a great guy and it was non-stop talking the whole time and Michael even jammed with him a little. The only complaint I have is that his room was filled with smoke, and the smell stayed with us all day. Gotta quit, Jimmy! :) We got back late, but Shaun and Scott survived babysitting the boys all day. The only problems they had was due to our forgetfulness, like they had to go to the store to get more diapers because we forgot the big pile on the kitchen. We also forgot the formula can, bottle brush, bibs, burp cloths, and then I was supposed to leave my car keys but ended up taking it with us to Phoenix. God, we’re awful!

The boys in the quad stroller

This morning, Michael went to a breakfast with his old group, Microsoft.com. It turns out that not too many people were there that he knew. He then came back home, then took the boys to day care. I was able to sleep in, what a luxury! When he came back, we were supposed to work really hard, but it was hard to get the motivation because we felt so “free”! It’s been awhile since we had someone really babysit the babies and we don’t HAVE to do anything. So we were a little leisure with our day, maybe too leisure. At the last minute, we gathered everything together since we spent the evening at my sister’s house. Michael picked up the boys from daycare. This time Alyssa said that they did really well. I made sure to have Michael take a picture of them in the quad-cart. They are so cute in it, although they were cuter when they were smaller. We all met up at Shaun’s house and found out that we left some major things at home, including formula, which Michael had to go out and buy. We had yummy thai food from a place called Thai Castle, which I’m guessing is in Issaquah. I laid out the “plan” for Shaun so that they had the roadmap for tomorrow with the boys.

Today we had so much going on. I felt kind of bad because the boys hardly got any attention today. It’s so weird because they almost sense that they need to take care of themselves for awhile, and they do. The window washer/driveway washer came today, as well as the septic tank dude. Michael got up super early to dig the holes to have the tanks pumped. He found the back one OK, but the front one, I remember it being in a really weird place. But it wasn’t there. Michael dug a MASSIVE hole. I tried to dig one as well (where I thought it was), but I was wrong too. The septic guy came and was able to find it with his poker thingy. Michael was close, but had to be a little bit more inward. We also met with the realtor and was able to set a price we were comfortable with. It was more than I expected, so that’s good. Our neighbor is interested in the house, so we let them take a quick peek. They are really nice, who knows? Michael also had to take the car in because I was worried that the brakes were worn, but it turns out that it was ok. I noticed today that one of Rowan’s top teeth finally broke through and also Elijah’s next top two teeth are coming down as well. I couldn’t tell if they actually broke through yet because he’s really fussy when I try to look.

I didn’t do hardly anything with the house today, mostly on the phone making arrangements and appointments and what not. A lot of crap has to be done to move! Mainly getting appointments in with doctors, dentists, etc.

We also set the dates for our going away party. We decided to separate it into two parties, one for climbers and one for normal people. Because you know climbers, all they want to talk about is climbing, climbing, climbing!

Michael took my parents to the airport early this morning and I woke up to an empty house. It was really sad, mostly because I got used to so many people helping me get the boys up, changed and dressed! I didn’t get anything done today, just trying to adjust back to the no-help schedule! I managed to sell some stuff and lots of people came by to buy stuff. Man, I cannot recommend craigslist enough! It’s a lot of work to take pictures, list stuff and sell things, but lots of stuff goes really quick!

In the evening, we got a visit from our friend, Kim. She wanted to buy a lot of our baby stuff because her sister is expecting twin boys almost 1 year younger than our boys! It was good to see her and catch up a bit. She has been so busy with her dentistry business! It’s really interesting to hear about all the things she goes through. It really is a business more than a “practice”!