Rodents, Pea Pods, New Room, Etc.

It's been a while since my last post, so I have a lot to cover.

1. No new wild animals have been spotted in the yard in addition to the raccoon and the possum. We've had a total of two dead critters (hunted and killed by cats I presume) on our doorsteps: one bird on the front door mat and one mouse on the back door mat. Other than nearly stepping on the rotting corpse of a mouse, I couldn't be happier about the death of the rodent. Francesca and Thurston are pulling their weight. Cat(s) 1, Mice 1. They did let that one mouse in the house, of course.

2. During the remodel, we were down a few days on the upstairs AC. The kids got to spend some quality time in their pea pod tents - napping in our bedroom during the day and sleeping in the living room at night. Shockingly, the AC man was unable to replace an entire AC system and install new duct work to the new room, and make it functional, in one day. I sort of saw that one coming.

Henry "banged" his little head against the wall of the tent one night and scooted himself clear out of the living room. This is how we found him in the morning:


3. The room is done. If my camera had the ability to reproduce colors with any degree of accuracy, you would see that the room is pale green and the bathroom is slightly less pale green.





The picture of the closet is a semi-accurate representation of the room color:


The bathroom:






From the entrance to the room:



Well, it's mostly done. We have one detail left to fix. There was a little confusion about what I meant when I said that I didn't want shiny chrome bathroom fixtures. My statement was interpreted to mean that I yearned to have someone search the four corners of the earth to find the largest and shiniest bathroom fixtures available and have those installed in the room.

The plumber replaced the bumper-chrome sink faucets that were initially installed with these snazzy little brushed stainless numbers.


We are waiting for the brushed stainless versions of the the shower fixtures to come in.


(there's a bigger difference in person - I swear)

I'm moving the kids into the new room this weekend. My plan is to begin disassembling cribs first thing on Saturday morning and having them put back together in the new room by nap time after lunch. The rest of the new room should take shape by the end of the weekend.

4. Heather is still gestating little Penelope and is 28 weeks today. Her pregnancy hasn't been the walk in the park I had hoped for. She's had to take a few visits to the hospital and stayed overnight on Monday, but she is not having pre-term labor - which is good. During her pregnancy with the kids, we had cake with candles in her hospital room where she had already been for five weeks when she made it to 28 weeks. So, even though this pregnancy isn't completely uneventful, I can only be thankful to be where we are.