there, i fixed it

Friends, we have moved every bed and dresser in this house this week. We really wanted to move Henry upstairs, but we were pretty sure he wouldn't enjoy having his own room after sharing with us for so long. But we ran into a problem: Neither Liam nor Max was willing to have his own room, either. The solution? Bunk beds. So on Black Friday afternoon, after the place had been cleared out, we headed to our local big box store to get an inexpensive but surprisingly well-crafted and sturdy set. We got it home and into the house (barely -- that thing weighs a ton!), but we still had to dismantle both twin beds upstairs and haul them down to the basement (where they will live until one of the boys decides he wants his own room after all), then haul the new bunk bed upstairs and assemble it, then dismantle Henry's crib downstairs, haul it upstairs, and reassemble it -- all with the "help" of three very eager boys.

The ceiling in the boys' bedroom is slanted, so I searched high and low for a short bunk bed, to no avail, but we thought it would be fine if we just scooted it out to the middle where the ceiling is higher. But once we got it assembled, we decided that just wouldn't do. So really, at that point, what choice did we have but to haul in a saw, jack the thing up, and chop off six inches at the bottom? None, really. So that's what we did Saturday afternoon. For a while there, we had most of the bed up on blocks, much like a car in a yard -- except that we used the boys' wooden building blocks.

Eventually, the bed was successfully shortened, and there was much rejoicing. Honestly. Can't you tell how much Max is rejoicing?

I won't bore you with any more details, except to say that we got new bedroom furniture (finally, we are adults with an actual headboard!) so we had to move all the dressers and bed and nightstands out of our room and get everything arranged once the new stuff got here on Monday. One good thing is that it forced me to deal with going through my closet and the boys' clothes and weed out stuff we don't use. It's all done now, and everything is looking great. And hopefully this is the last time we have to move any furniture for a nice long while!

welcome lucy!

The boys had an extra-special treat this Thanksgiving: They got to meet their brand-new cousin, Lucy Leigh! Lucy was born Monday evening (6 lbs, 12 oz if you're interested), so she was only three days old when we saw her on Thanksgiving. She is a sweet baby with lots of hair, and the boys liked her right away. I'm sure they're already trying to figure out when she'll be old enough to play with them, but in the meantime, they really liked hanging out with her.

Welcome to Lucy, and congratulations, Johnny and Erin! She's beautiful.

henry's big week

Last Monday, we took Henry to the hospital to get his ear tubes. It was a very quick surgery (15 minutes!) and we were on our way home less than an hour afterward. Once we got home, we decided to do a little family pool on when Henry would walk after the surgery (he hadn't walked yet, and we were thinking it was because the fluid on his ears was messing up his equilibrium). Mike picked Tuesday, Max picked Wednesday, I picked Thursday/Thanksgiving, and Liam picked Sunday. We eagerly watched him for signs of walking that first day. He didn't show any, but he DID show rapid verbal improvement. By Monday afternoon, he was clearly forming sounds and saying "cat" every time one of the cats walked by. Progress!

It turns out that I picked the right day. Henry walked for the first time at his grandparents' house on Thanksgiving Day! Mike and I sat on the floor facing each other, and Henry walked right to Mike, and then back to me. It was really a sweet moment with everyone watching and cheering for him. I think the applause confused him a little, but it also made him laugh. Every day since then, he's walked a little bit more.

But that's not the end of the big week! On Friday, Henry took another unprecedented step: He finally moved out of our bedroom and into his brothers' bedroom upstairs. It took some rearranging, but all three boys are now sharing a bedroom, and so far they all seem to love it. Henry especially thinks it's a whole new world up there, with so many new toys to play with, and he loves waking up in the morning and jabbering at his big brothers until they wake up and play with him.

So yes, it's been a very big week for a little boy. Baby steps? Who needs 'em?!?

a real classic

It's good to know that so many years later, the boys are still lining up to watch the big car chase from Bullitt.

quick hit: old equals tall

Saturday, Liam and Max got haircuts, and the stylist gave them each a balloon afterward. Henry loved the balloons, and cried and pointed every time one escaped his grasp and floated up to the ceiling. For reasons unknown, Max and Liam at one point decided to untie the string from one, and of course, it floated up to the ceiling and they couldn't get it. So they asked Mike to get it, which he did handily.

Sunday, Max and I drove to Oak Park for my friend Val's birthday party, and Max got to pick three balloons to bring home (one for each boy). In the van, one of them popped unexpectedly -- it scared the crap out of both of us! And once we got home, Max got out of the van in the garage, and lost control of one of the strings. The balloon floated peacefully into the rafters.

Max looked up at it thoughtfully, then said, "We are gonna need somebody really old to get that one down!"

And then a minute later: "Or I guess we could get a ladder. I don't know anybody that old."

sale of the century

My brother went to an estate sale a few weeks ago with an unbelievable number of bargains. Seriously unbelievable. He and my mom and Loni scored a table, a ton of tools, a china cabinet, etc. But the most unbelievable deal of all was an old and enormous desk -- for $15! Showing evidence of the mutant power formed by the combination of my mom's inability to resist a bargain and my dad's compulsive pack rat nature, he bought the thing, loaded it up, and brought it home. He didn't have any place to put it (it would take up half of his room!) and he didn't actually know anyone who needed a desk, so it went out to my dad's shop, a place with a very low turnaround, if you know what I mean.

Luckily, Lon happened to mention that they hit the yard sale mother lode. I've been looking for a new desk for a couple of years now, off and on. I definitely needed more work space, but man, those things are expensive! So I waited, and watched Craigslist. And waited some more. But now, friends, the wait is over and the price was right. I might even go so far as to say this was the best $15 ever spent by anyone, ever. Yes, that's right: two evers. Check this thing out:



Looks fairly normal, right? Aside from the size (the top is 60 inches by 35 inches, much bigger than my old desk) maybe. It has a middle drawer, three drawers on one side, and a cabinet on the other. When we opened it up, we found some interesting surprises.



This is the cabinet side. It's got a spring-loaded shelf that pops out and up (I say "pops" because that is what I assume it did at one time; now, it kind of groans and protests and requires a lot of pulling) to make a typewriter stand. There were even holes for the cord! The plan was to put the computer tower in the cabinet, but once we discovered this fascinating feature, I couldn't bear to rip it out. But we came up with the perfect solution, and now the typewriter shelf is home to the printer.



The drawers are really deep, and have the usual complement of partitions, but the bottom drawer had these cool wooden dividers for file folders. And the very very best part about the drawers is that there's some kind of lever system that locks all of the side drawers when the middle drawer is closed. It's the perfect defense against a baby who loves nothing more than a good drawer to gleefully empty.

It was a really long day breaking everything down and getting it all set up again, even with my dad and J sparing us by hauling it over here, but here's the finished product:

say what?

I've posted before about how Henry gets ear infections really often. Well, yesterday Mike and I took him to an ear-nose-throat specialist, and the verdict is that he needs tubes. Which will be a very good thing for him, not just to help with the ear infections, but because it turns out that all the fluid that's stuck in his ears has made it so he hears things like he's, well, under water. Which is probably why, at almost 14 months, the only thing he really says with regularity is "uh oh." And since fluid in the ears affects balance, it's also probably why he isn't walking yet.

The first available time for the doctor isn't for three weeks, and now that we know what the problem is and how to fix it, three weeks feels like such a long time. How many words could he have learned in that time? How many steps could he have taken? I know, I know. It's not so bad. I just want to get on with it already.

quick hit: maxisms

Max is constantly asking questions. Seriously, it's nonstop from the minute he wakes up in the morning until he zonks out at night. Mom, why do I have to wear long sleeves? Mom, do you want to know more about space rocks? Mom, do you know that's Jupiter in the sky? Mom, why are there so many planets up there? Mom, do you eat cereal with a spoon? Mom? Mom? Mom?

But yesterday, he came up with a really good one: Mom, are policemen allowed to have houses?

It took me a minute to get what he was asking, but then I realized: He thinks that police officers have to live in their police cars 24 hours a day. Like it's one of the supreme sacrifices they make in order to serve and protect. Which is really pretty clever, and shows that he's given policing an awful lot of thought. [Note: This is also in evidence by the at least 10 questions he asks me every single day about that time I got a speeding ticket and had to go to traffic school -- seven years ago.]