Moving

Linus and I continue to make two trips per day to the new house.  His new role is to play doorman.  As I go out to the car, he closes the door most of the way. When I return with a box he pulls it open and I enthusiastically say, "Thank you so much doorman. What a great doorman you  are!"  This keeps him entertained and from running free up the block looking for the orange and white neighborhood cat that he wants to befriend.

I painted Linus' room a bright blue. I'm very happy with the color, but Matthew doesn't seem to be sold on it. I painted his bookcases a darker blue, but I don't like how they turned out. The intensity of both the walls and the shelves together hurts my eyes. I'm now going to paint the shelves a light green and hope to create a nice reading nook for him in his room.  I obtained the book cases in 1989 by rescuing them from a dumpster outside my apartment building.  They were my first bookcases and, even though there is a chunk of wood missing from the top front of one of them from one of my drunk college friends trying to open a beer bottle on it (yes, I attended school in Wisconsin!), I've kept them all this time.  Now they get repurposed for Linus.

Linus likes the new house and enjoys jumping in piles of packing paper.  He also likes looking at books that were in storage because when we moved here a year ago he wasn't ready for them.  Now he is and so he got an entire box of new books.  

Longest Sentence

Last night during bedtime stories Linus said his longest sentence to date: "That's a horse sleeping."  I did a happy dance on the inside. I really do enjoy witnessing his language development.

He was a good sport about moving yesterday, but today he wasn't very happy about it.  He brought some more toys to the new house, but then didn't want to play with them.  So after I unloaded a car full of very heavy boxes (we have too many books!), we ran an errand and then hung out together at the old place.

While running the errand I witnessed a hit and run accident and it certainly was a stressful experience.  Colfax Avenue has four lanes, plus turning lanes going in each direction.  A sports car sped out of a side street right into an oncoming SUV.  Between the force of the impact and the SUV driver's defensive driving, he was heading in our direction.  I immediately pulled over into the street parking to get as far over as I could.  Then I witnessed the sports car back up, turn into traffic, and speed away.  The SUV was in a turn lane going in the wrong direction. I called over traffic to ask if they were all okay. They were and called the police. Another car pulled up behind me and we both stuck around to serve as witnesses.  While waiting for the police I almost broke down crying to relieve the stress of thinking that the vehicles were going to crash into us. More importantly, crash into Linus. I held it together and then it turns out none of us were good witnesses because we couldn't describe the driver at all.  Linus liked that the officer peeked his head into the car and said hi to him.

Here is a picture of Linus walking around the new house with my shoes on.  He likes walking around with Matthew's sandals on.  He has also started trying to put his own socks on.

Mowing

Linus has picked up the mowing bug from Bennett.  I bought him a mower last summer when he was interested in trying out Bennett's mower, but he wouldn't share with Linus.  Linus hardly played with it.  On nice days recently we encountered all three of Bennett's mowers in his front yard. (He is obsessed with mowing and somehow ended up with three of them. I forget why.  Dawn ends up mowing neighbors' lawns because Bennett likes to mow alongside her.) So on our walk up the block from Lucero's house, Linus ran up the lawn and grabbed one of the mowers and began mowing. Then Charlotte got home from day care and she joined in.  They were adorable mowing together.

Yesterday I brought the mower to the new house and Linus mows in the back yard while I haul boxes in and unpack.  I'm really glad to have a safe back yard for Linus.

About the walk home from Lucero's house; sometimes it can take 45 minutes to get in our door.  Linus insists on going down her slide a number of times before I can cajole him into heading home so I can make dinner.  Two houses later he encounters Bennett's mowers and dump truck.  We stop so he can play.  Then, as I've nearly convinced Linus to head home, Charlotte comes out of the very next house and the two of them play.  There are only five houses between ours and Lucero's, but boy does it take a long time to get home.

Bird Songs

Linus is very interested in birds right now.  I checked out some birding books from the library. One of them is about 250 pages long and has a player. Linus likes to push to hear each bird's song and I tell him about the bird on each page.  In the picture he is showing the book to Matthew.  He has a number of nature books and when we read them he points to every bird and says, "That's a..." and expects me to know what every bird on Earth is.  He makes a good whippoorwill call with the right inflection.  I think I'll assign him to bird feeder duty at the new house. 

Today I met the neighbor on the south side of us. Her kids are one and three.  New friends for Linus!

Snow Angel

As I mentioned in the last post, Sunday was snowy.  Matthew took Linus out in the sled while I started dinner.  He pulled Linus over to the new house and back (about six blocks round trip). He helped Linus make his very first snow angel and snowman.  Here are the results. I leaned out the door to take pictures and when I got cold I gave the camera to Matthew.

I've only been able to take two car loads of stuff each day to the house because I play with Linus while we are working.  At this rate, we'll be completely moved by the end of the year!

New House

We closed on the house Friday afternoon and the owner got out by 6 p.m. yesterday. We went to dinner with Martha and Bill to celebrate and then went over the house to show them around and for us to explore all the nooks and crannies that are now ours. Linus gleefully ran from room to room, hiding in closets and calling out for us to find him. What will soon be my craft room has French doors and he likes to close the doors and peek at us by smooshing his face up against the glass.  I'm currently contemplating what color to paint his room.  Nursery Green?  Chesapeake?Douglas Fern? Once Upon A Time is a beautiful, rich green, but it is too dark for his room.  I'm also admiring Paddington Blue, but it is also too dark.  

Yesterday it was 74 degrees and today it is 30 degrees and snowing.  I've been told that these wide fluctuations are pretty normal for here.

Here we are at our back door.  It was too dark on the front porch to get a picture of us up front. The other picture is of Linus doing a happy dance. Or else he is just twirling around being an energetic toddler.