Open House

We always knew that our current home would be a "starter home" for about 5 or so years. For the past year we'd been feeling the itch to move, and it's been growing a lot stronger recently. So we've been working on specifics details like a time line, financial plan, investigating school districts and taxes. But part of the "fun" has been going to open houses and seeing what's out there.

We know some of the things we want (4+ bedrooms, 2.5+ baths, non-basement laundry, a decent yard, master suite, attached garage) and some of the things we don't want (like a ranch or patio style home, pool, location on a main road). But going to some open homes has allowed us to consider different things (and sometimes reconsider things we said we'd want). Two of our favorites have been these:

House #1 - pretty much the perfect house in person.Only 6 yrs old with an awesome entry way, great space and natural light, and a beautiful open kitchen with hardwood floors. It has a wonderful master suite with HUGE walk in closet, and a second floor laundry just to name a few perks. Even the price & location are perfect for us. Unfortunately the yard is fairly small. Dave doesn't seem to like my idea of excavating out the hillside in the back. Sure, it makes the yard private, but what's a move without some demolition?!




House #2 has a much bigger yard, and it's a wooded lot to boot. It has a first floor office with french doors and a beautiful fire place in the formal living room. The basement is finished and has a "mother in law" suite which is a nice open bedroom and a full bath with sitting area. The house is only 6 years old and is environmentally friendly as it is geothermal heated and has a whole house fresh air exchange. Unfortunately it's a little above our price comfort zone, but hey, you never know! Maybe it will be on the market for a while and they will drop their price.

But we both agree that while looking at houses is fun, it's kind of a tease since we're looking to move early next summer / late spring. We still have a few minor cosmetic things to finish up with this house before we put it on the market. And we definitely can't move unless we sell this house - 2 mortgages are not in the cards. Since we didn't win the big powerball jackpot, I'll guess we'll just have to dig deeper and find some patience.

Take Me Out to the Ball Game

Take me out to the ball game...
Take me out with the crowd....

wait, there's no crowd here....

Tonight Cori got to experience her first ever Pirates baseball game. As the pictures show, she was more interested in the surroundings than the actual game.

Mmmm - veggies! Oh wait, no zucchini? Never mind...

A friend / sub-contractor of my work invited us to their company suite. We were the only ones there for some time, so we dug into the food and beer. Hey, someone had to be first!
Cori had her 15 month check-up on Tuesday and I wasn't able to post until now as she was under the weather - a normal reaction from her shots. She had a fever for 2 days and was fairly miserable, just not her regular self. But the doctor was very happy with everything. Cori weights 24 lbs 5 ozs which places her in the 72nd percentile. Her height is 31.5 inches which is the 76th percentile. But the funniest statistic was her head circumference was 48 cm which is the 97th percentile! Our girl's got some big brains in there!

15 months

Just a quick update but is our little bird really 15 months old today? We can't believe how fast time flies! Cori has been doing great since walking on her own last weekend! She can still be a bit tentative in the mornings but not too long into the day she is pushing our hand away and off and about. It's really helped tire her out in the evenings too, so that is an added bonus.

Speaking of sleep, at the risk of jinxing myself, I have to say how wonderful Corinne has been doing sleep wise! We went through sleep training part 2 last week and the worrying was needless. Cori cried for less than 5 minutes each night for the first few nights and slept through the night every night. Most nights she doesn't even make a peep and sleeps 10-11 hrs through. If she does cry out, she puts herself back to sleep fairly quickly.

Tomorrow we have her well visit with the pediatrician and will find out Cori's weight and height. Updates and pictures then!

Miss Independent

Tonight Cori took a big step (literally) from assisted walking to independence! For a few weeks she has been just barely holding onto our finger walking all around. She was too afraid to let go, even though we suspected she'd be fine if she did. We didn't want to push it and figured she would do it when she was ready.

Dave got home today from his 100 on 100 race in Vermont - just in time! I let go of her hand earlier today and she took a few steps unknowingly. The video below shows her taking a few steps between Dave and his mom. Of course after I put the video camera away, she decided to walk the whole way across the living room! She did that a few times and she is even pushing our hands away now. She is also mostly successful in standing up on her own after she falls. We figure by the end of the week she'll be off to the races.



I'm also wondering if this means Cori will now sleep great since she figured the whole walking thing out, or if she'll be up tonight trying to walk across her crib.

Exhaustion

How is it August already? Where is the time going so fast?! The past 2 weeks have been really busy and I'm just now having a moment to write a quick update. Last weekend we were at a family reunion in WV which was a lot of fun. We spent close to 3 days with a lot of Dave's step-mom's family members that we don't get to see very often. Early the next day I flew to Dallas for 2 days of busy work meetings. A new project with the USPS has been keeping me extra occupied at work.

Tempered in with the busy last 2 weeks is a total lack of sleep these days. We're not exactly sure what is going on with Corinne but wanting to sleep through the night isn't high on her priority list. We can rule out illness and it doesn't appear to be teething related that I can see. I guess if I had to speculate I'd say it is related to almost walking unassisted. If I can recall, I think we went though something like this right before she crawled. Now if only I can recall how long it lasted....

But lately Cori is up for multiple hours during the night. One night this past week, she was up from midnight to 6 AM (no exaggerating). Sometimes she twitches and will only sleep when held, other times she just out-right screams for hours, and then sometimes she will sleep for an hour, wake up and then take an hour to go back down, and then wake up in another hour, etc. I think the most frustrating part is that one week she will be totally fine and sleep undisturbed, and then we'll have a week of not sleeping well at all. It goes back and forth like a ping-pong ball. And she is taking a really long time to fall asleep as well; the usual bedtime of 7 / 7:30 PM is more like 8:30 / 9 PM these days.

Needless to say Mom & Dad are wiped out. If I'm really honest with myself, I know we need to re-Ferberize. But I hate hearing her scream, and since Ferber fell by the wayside around 9 / 10 months, we haven't been doing it. And we really haven't needed to until recently. She was sleeping great for months! Now it's pretty much a bad habit that generally Cori needs held to fall back asleep. It pains me to say that because I love rocking her to sleep and holding her while she dozes. But it no longer takes just a few mintues to accomplish; it's more like hours now. And these sleep-deprived nights are building on one another that we can't take it anymore.

Efforts to re-institute sleep training for a few days this week have failed miserably. It sucks when you know you should do this because in the long run, it's better for your kid. But the "here & now" aspect just bites. Is there a patron saint of sleep that I can pray to?? The next blog update will depend on when Cori returns to "normal" and I get more than a few winks here and there.