More Banana eating

The finale is phenomenal

Oliver eating

Doing what he does best.

Baby for sale

First $5 takes him.

Nice nights

Some nights, he totally makes up for the days he's a crap head.

Today, we picked him up from daycare. We came home and I heated up some spaghetti for him. I began making dinner while I waited for the spaghetti to cool down. As he got more vocal about getting his dinner, I let Crazy take over as I fed him his spaghetti that I lovingly made with turkey, beef, onions, carrots, tomatos, garlic and semolina noodles. He ate the entire bowl of spaghetti, then let me wipe his mouth. He then started to cry and get really restless, and so I picked him up. I said, "Oliver, you need to tell mommy what you want, if you cry, I don't know what you want." Then I asked him if he wanted more spaghetti or water, or nana. He first said spaghetti (but I didn't have any warmed up) but luckily he started to say nana. So nana he got. Then he let me continue to make dinner as he patiently waited on the other side of the baby gate. I offered him some v-day cookie pieces we picked up from whole foods on Sunday and he went happily to the book shelf to peruse his books. After he was done with the cookie he asked for wawa and afterwards he patted his belly with his hands and said "bao bao", which in Chinese means he's full. He then brought me a book "Snow" by Dr. Seuss and as I read, he chimed in when he could. He would scream words, you know when you are reading snow, you have to chime in when you can. Then around 8 pm, I said, "Oliver, night night?" to which I got no response. Crazy has been struggling with night times with Oliver for a few days so he asked me to handle it. I took him in, he fought when I was putting on his pajamas, but went to sleep when I put the blanket on him. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't easy, there were tears and a head bump on the crib rails, but he went down without too much fuss.

So then Crazy and I were able to have our dinner. I made butternut squash risotto with vermouth and onions. I also made some potato and onions (cause it was easy and we had the ingredients) and Crazy made some apple smoked bacon (because there was no other protein). It wasn't a healthy dinner, but home made nevertheless.

The childless night gave me some time to reflect on a few things that's been going on. Last night we met with a local carpet supplier so we had dinner out. What normally happens when we eat is that Crazy eats his meals, and I feed Oliver. I don't get to eat until after Oliver eats and then it only happens when Crazy is done so he can entertain Oliver while I eat my dinner. Well since we had an appointment, I tried to get in some bites and as I tried to get some bites in, Crazy tried to feed Oliver. Well guess what? Every time Crazy offered any food to Oliver, Oliver would refuse to eat. The weird part was that when I offered him the same food, he ate it. But then refused it when Crazy offered him food. We've noticed this has been going on for this week, which is really the first time Crazy has offered him food. Don't get me wrong, Crazy feeds him, but normally doesn't feed him with utensils. He normally just plops him in his high chair and puts food on the tray. So it was weird to see Oliver refuse food from Crazy, but eat when I offer it to him. Perhaps its just a phase. Who knows.

Food is important to Oliver. Seriously, he is obsessed with it. When we take him to daycare, we'll normally pack his morning oatmeal in a little plastic bowl that has a really tight lid. We'll hand him the bowl when we get inside the front door. He'll hold it in front of him carefully and walk to the infant room with it. When he gets inside he heads for the high chair and hands his bowl to Mrs. Chen and says EAT, and if she's not paying attetion, he'll repeat himself, while trying to pull the high chair to her. Its hilarious.

On the home front, nothing. How's that? The underwriter wants the appraiser to reload his entire appraisal with a new fourth comp. The painter we wanted to hire emailed us this morning to ask when we wanted him to start. We haven't put in our 30 day at our apartment, cause we are never leaving. We are loosing our 5% lock next Friday. So much fun.

Happy closing day to me

Happy closing day to me...Happy closing day to me, Happy closing day to me!

Unfortunately, it isn't quite so happy. We are not closing. I am upset, unfortunately I can't do anything about it. The thing that everyone was fighting over, the appraiser's 4th comp, is now caput. The 4th comp was unclosed, and we sat around waiting for it to close so the underwriter could push it through. Unfortunately, the home is back on the market, so the appraiser who was refusing to replace the comp now has to find a new comp. So we have no idea when this property is going to close.

We will live in the ghetto FOREVER. We will NEVER leave. I hate this entire process.

Oh Yeah

What the shirt says!



He was dancing for the camera. Unfortuately we didn't capture it on camera. He loves to preen for the camera.

PssssssSSSST!

It doesn't look quite right here. He wouldn't let me finish trimming the sides.

Chopsticks anyone?

While at work today, Crazy sent me an instant message and it went a little something like this:

Crazy: I love being a papa
Oliver's mama: ......

When the heck did that happen? I still find motherhood one of the weirdest feelings in the world. Honestly, I don't know what to think of it. I often tell people that its just one thing that I feel the weirdest about in my life. I don't know why, I just do. That doesn't mean I don't love Oliver, it just means that being his mother still feels strange.

At about 3 pm, we got a call from the daycare staff, Oliver had a fever of 102 and they wanted us to come pick him up. We showed up and his head felt a bit warm, but nothing to worry about. He had some wanton soup for dinner and apples for dessert. He went to bed at 8 pm without much of a fuss. At night I say, Okay Oliver, night night! He walks to the baby gate in the hallway and waves bye bye. Then he blows kisses at me as Crazy and him head for his bedroom.

We've noticed some weird behaviors from him. He doesn't really want to try anything new and plays shy with strangers. He will however eat anything you offer him if you offer it to him with chopsticks. Seriously. Last weekend after we came home from visiting with contractors at the new house, I was too tired to cook anything anyone would want to eat. Crazy went out and got some Mexican food from one of the ghetto chains. Its pretty decent food, and doesn't come from a truck. Imagine that. Anyhow, I knew that Oliver was hungry, but he refused to eat the burrito stuffing as I spooned it for him. He kept shaking his head and pushing the food away with his hand. So I asked Crazy for some chop sticks. He laughed and watched in awe as I offered burrito stuffing being eaten from chopsticks by our almost 2 year old son. Hilarious!

Of course this post isn't complete if I don't give you guys more details about our housing situation. We are still waiting for the housing appraiser to include a new comp, because one of the comps he provided was not going to close for another week or two. The appraiser REFUSES to give us another comp and the seller's bank is refusing to budge on their requests. We most likely will not close next week and I'm not exactly thrilled. Especially since we are lining people up to start work on the house. We got 2 estimates for carpet in the new place, one is ridiculous and the other is decent. The ridiculous one is from Home Depot, who would have thunk. We are asking carpet contractors to come out to estimate the cost for carpet, since we have absolutely NOTHING to loose.

What's better than ball ball?

Ball ball in the bath. The grout is ugly in the tub, so don't comment about it, it isn't ours. Hopefully we will be moving soon. We bought a hoop and some ball balls for the bath.


Yea his hair is long. I half joked to Crazy that I would put a clip in Oliver's hair so that his bangs are not in his face.


We finally found a painter contractor and OMG, its so expensive! I wonder if I can apply for welfare afterwards. Jeez, I thought contractors were hungry?! At the rate that we are looking at, they don't seem all that hungry.

House pains

Why oh why does it always have to be so difficult?

The bank signed a contract with us to sell this damn house to us. We offered 25k more than the selling price, now they are wondering why and holding EVERYTHING up. We are supposed to close in a week and a half. It doesn't look like its going to happen because the bank is really slow in giving us all the documents we need to review before the closing date.

Our agent has told us to keep looking because it doesn't seem as though the bank is serious. I am frustrated because I've already decided this is our next home. Nothing seems comparable, so we are just trucking along.

We had a bunch of paint contractors over yesterday and basically spent the entire day at the new house. All the paint contractors were disappointing in one way or another. We saw someone today that seemed totally professional, so hopefully this will work out. He needs to give us a quote and I'm hoping it will be in our budget. We want to do what's right for the environment so we are choosing eco friendly paints and carpeting. Home Depot is supposed to give us a quote today for all the carpet we've chosen. Empire carpets was out yesterday giving us a quote. Things are coming along fine on that department, I just wish we knew solidly that our closing date will be cemented instead of the bank messing around with us. I'm sure both agents are frustrated at possibly not earning their commissions, but hopefully the bank's agent will take it seriously and push the deal through.

Oliver is supposed to be taking a nap right now but I hear talking and singing in his room. While at Home Depot one night, Crazy couldn't stop talking about putting bullet proof glass in Oliver's balcony, you know on the off chance that someone wants to shoot into that room, or Oliver becomes superman and tries to break free. I looked at him and said, "It must be hard to be you," to which he replied, "Yeah, I know, I'm Crazy..." Oh and I didn't even get to the good part yet. Crazy said, "what do we do when Oliver learns to climb over the baby gate?" Its a relatively valid concern, but honestly if he climbs over the baby gate and falls down the stairs...what can we do? build a door in front of the stairs? Oliver will not be the first kid living with stairs, and since he grew up with stairs and crazily enough stayed alive despite living in a house with stairs, there's no real reason to believe that his (maybe) son won't.

Okay, I have to go because Oliver's childish chit chat is making it hard for me to keep blogging.

I think I'm becoming an adult

I don't know how this happened, but I think we will be getting our adult cards next week.

We met with our agent today and dropped off a check for the termite inspection guy. The appraisal came out status quo to the sales price, our loan application has been approved, and now we even asked for a credit on the house for items that were uncovered in the inspection. I doubt we will get anything, but hey, I will ask anyhow. We went to home depot and priced out some eco-friendly carpet made of corn (not kidding). We priced out eco friendly paint as well as decided on the colors for each room. We even picked out a faucet as well as a ceiling fan for the living room. We have also priced out a stove vent and made plans to replace the well thought idea of a "microwave vent".

We will start calling contractors next week to get bids on the paint job as well as the carpet people to see who can give us a better deal. Its all so scary, but yet so exciting. Our bank account will start dwindling and dwindling, more so than when I write those fat checks to daycare.

I just put away all of the 12-18 month clothes, but still find that the 18-24 clothes are a bit big for my little guy. The pants are still too long, and I have to cinch the elastic on his pants so that they don't fall off his little body. I have also moved him to the size 6 See Kai Run shoes, and picked up a pair of really cute shoes.

I am still trying to hold back from cutting his hair. I need to pick up new pajamas for him since the pajamas he has is getting a little in the "high waters" arena. So since Uncle P is bad mouthing my tastes in clothes, perhaps he should put his mouth where his money is? Oh and don't bad mouth my taste in music, we don't love rap nor do we love emo.

Someone's 2nd birthday is coming up! We will be sending out our new addresses so that all of Oliver's birthday presents will arrive at the correct spot. But I think Oliver is ready for a trike. We're probably getting him the Kettler Go Green Trike. Now, he's got plenty of clothes, he will need toys.