6.27.07 Talk Talk (Daddy)

Lately Elijah won't stop babbling. I'm actually okay with this because I just turn up the music and go on my way. I'm joking of course, but do any of you realize how odd it is to think you hear your child say something? ie: "hey baby"
Ya, we actually think Elijah said Hey Baby. I've heard some other strange words emerge from his mouth too, but have no idea if we're just injecting our own language patterns onto his babbling.

In other news, life is beyond crazy. Our air conditioner quit on Monday. $2200 later we have a cool house again, but had to mortgage Elijah's milk to do so. We'll be able to afford new milk in about a week. We can't eat our cookies now until we have milk.

I'll be moving the entire house to Portland as of July 5th. It will take me 2.5 days to get to Portland and then more craziness begins. Did I mention that life is crazy right now?

6.23.07 Irony (Daddy)

The plant that my mom planted for me, a plant that came from a piece of my Dad's mother's plant, has died. I've been nursing it for a while, even added some dirt to the pot and tried to keep it watered. The poor thing started to look unhealthy a few months ago. Now, it is just a shriveled up corpse. Where I find this to be most interesting is in the fact that we're moving from this city and moving up to somewhere better suited to our family. Was my grandmother's plant with me just to help me get through the last two years of transition? I feel like it was. The question I have to ask myself now is "Is Vegas dead?"
Thanks for watching over me Grandma.

6.15.07 What I Like(Mommy)

As our little baby turns more and more in to a little boy, his likes and dislikes become very apparant.
Elijah likes:
milk, carbs of any kind, the pantry, his blue dog that he sleeps with, being outside, coloring.
Elijah does not like:
time outs, his car seat, vegetables, going up or down the stairs alone, naptime, having a runny nose.
He loves:
giving hugs, giving open mouthed kisses, Spongebob, dancing, music, baths, being chased, his "wheats", the computer, cellphones.
He hates:
being told "no", diaper rash, mommy or daddy leaving, teething, having to "say" anything when asked, having to finish his dinner.

The old cliche of "They grow up so fast!" certainly is true. I can scarcely believe how big 'Lijah is now. His personality is coming out more and more. And I have to say, I see so much of his dad in him. Like the neatness gene. I don't have it. Andy does. And it would apear that Elijah posesses it as well. This child will put things away. And not just away, but exactly where they are supposed to go. I don't get it. Its really cool, but he so did not get that from me.
Andy's love of music has passed to Elijah also. The child will not be completely happy unless there is music playing. It's amazing to watch his mood go from upset like the world is about to end (did I mention dramatic?)to so happy that he is dancing. Weird child.
Then there is the issue of stubborness . I don't know who he gets it from! (wink) He will not, not, not say milk for us. We have heard him try, heard him say different renditions for it, but now he refuses to even try. We are trying to teach him to use his words to ask for things. When asked he will say "juice" and "cheese" and other little word variants. But "milk"? Nope. No sir. Not gonna say it. We have gotten to the point where he is not getting it until he says it. It's been a few days. I'm not missing the daily battle. He's not missing the milk. It's stubborn vs more stubborn. Guess who's going to win?

6.9.07 Lost and Found?(Daddy)

Uhhhhh.
All I can say here is "holy crap". There is so much going on right now. Blogging has been such a low priority for me, and I bet no one can guess why! Ok, maybe you can. We have two house payments right now, which means about $3500 is leaving this house each month just for mortgage payments. I think that would make most people crazy, especially people who make a little as we do. To top that off, we bought a different car and haven't sold our prior vehicle. We've received a couple of calls on the car we have for sale, but nothing concrete. One person actually asked me if she could fit her golf clubs in the back of the car - how should I know????? We love our new Volvo S80 though. LOVE IT! It kicks rooty tooty butt!

I've been wrapping up a few jobs and trying to get a few more started. It is hard bringing in enough cash to pay for all this extra, unnecessary stuff. Sorry, some of this blog is going to be a bit of a rant - my apologies ahead of time. One of the jobs I've been working on is the Joy of Giving Something. They are an awesome company, and I'm really loving working on their site. We're doing some really cool things behind-the-scenes and I'm proud of the work we're doing. A couple other clients have been placed on the back burner, sorta anyway. I have a photographer client/friend who I need to get a quote and need to get working on, but my developer is just so busy right now that he hasn't had the time to get it started. A couple other projects are just hanging, waiting for content and stuff. I could go on and on, but sometimes it feels like I'm working and not getting paid. That really strains the old brain and attention. Some days I just want to stop working and go see a few movies. Some days I want to open a bottle of wine at 10am and call it a day! Let's keep that between us okay? (wink). Just yesterday I was on the phone back and forth with two clients. One of them here in Vegas, the other in Portland. I love them both, and love working with them both, but the problems they were both having were driving me nuts! The client here has a server and a office setup that is overly complex, and my client in Portland is using an older system that is continuously giving many people headaches - me included. Luckily both issues were resolved and they are all fixed, but my going back and forth trying to balance both was strenuous. Sometimes I don't even know if I can make any money on issues like these because I'm talking to one and then talking to another and providing advice, and remotely fixing, etc. Working with one client one minute and working with another client the next. How do you charge for that??? I haven't figured that out yet.

We are slowly packing the house and are trying to be as good as possible at discarding the things we don't need or don't want. Between you and me, however, I have no idea what stuff Rebecca doesn't want, so I'm packing some of it because I don't want to take the time to say "do you want this?". The packing would take longer if I did that. Along with the packing stress, I also let all my Las Vegas clients know about my move. I let my networking group know the same day I notified all my other Vegas clients - too much to take in one day. I also had to go meet a new client here in Las Vegas on that day, and try to make them comfortable while not telling them I was going to be departing soon. The reassuring thing here is that I have already scheduled a trip back down here in August. It will be hot, but my re-appearing so soon will undoubtedly reassure everyone that I am committed to them as well. I don't abandon clients, never have and never will. I may have an issue with some parts of Las Vegas, but the people I work with are very important to me and I like them all. Some are quirky, yes, but aren't I quirky too? Seems like a good fit to me. One of the clients I let know I was leaving actually said "all the good ones always leave". That made me feel good and sad at the same time, and kinda summarizes my whole feeling about going back to Portland. I want to be back in Portland because that is where my family is, that is where I want my family to be, that is where the majority of my friends are, there is good food there and the majority of my clients are there as well. Cross your fingers that I will be able to keep up with this back-and-forth travel stuff once I return to Portland.

Elijah. . . Elijah. Elijah. . . wow. He is a little boy now. He actually put himself in time-out today. We have a place here in our Vegas house that is considered his time-out spot. He was wining today while Mom was outside raking dog poop. I simply asked him if he needed to go sit down. He didn't say anything, but about 2 minutes later I saw him sitting in the hallway in his time-out spot. My gosh was that too cute. He got himself back up and was okay for a bit. What does this mean? No clue, but it probably means he likes routine - which is a good thing, right? He isn't running everywhere because there isn't really any place to run, but he sure walks well. He is saying "juice" and "wall" and "stairs". Why is he saying "wall?" - no idea. He points to the wall and says wall. Guess the fact that we have walls is an important thing. He also says "mom" a whole lot. He refers to me as "Duh". I suppose that should be a good thing, but spelling it out the way it sounds is kinda depressing. Elijah isn't eating well, and reminds me of how I was when I was little. He wants only carbs. Give him a rice cake and he's in heaven. Give him a cracker, same thing. Give him some juice or milk - he's good. If you approach him with beans, (which he used to love) meat of any kind, or a vegetable of any kind and he reacts like you have smashed his favorite car. We have, sadly, resorted to shoving things in his mouth. We know this could lead to eating problems down the road, but he won't eat anything! Nothing!!! It is now 6:45pm and all he has really had to eat today is a couple of scrambled eggs from this morning. He won't eat any dinner tonight and will be waiting for his "wheats" in the morning right along with his full bottle of milk. He'll get a nice surprise in the a.m. when he gets water and green beans. I'm joking of course, but even Mom said today that she's beginning to worry about his lack of eating. I think we're going to have to instruct the baby sitter to keep him out of the crackers and snacks because it is causing him to eat nothing but carbs. The baby sitter isn't causing this, Elijah is doing it. We're just trying to put a stop to it now.

Our move is coming up in just a few weeks. Today is the 9th and we're going to be moving on the 7th or 8th of July. There are boxes all over the place, but there is still a whole lot to be done. The house in Portland doesn't have any gas in it, so we'll have to have it plumbed. Have I mentioned we're broke? I'd encourage anyone reading this to make sure they are financially stable and to AVOID purchasing a third car when they are already stressed out about affording two mortgage payments. Anyhoo, we have been shipping a few things to my good friend Mark in Portland. I won't tell you what we shipped because it isn't important, but simply put, there are necessary items for the house. We still have to purchase window coverings, but I'll be collecting cans in order to afford those.

Rebecca is going to be staying with friends down here in Vegas while I am getting the house ready in Portland. She is planning on taking a few days off so she can fly up and see her husband and her son, but it will still be hard to be without the Mom. She has to stay here in Vegas until August 10th, when she finally done teaching. She'll then fly to Portland on the 11th to come "home". 'Lijah and I will welcome her with open arms AND a nice bottle of wine. We were given a gorgeous bottle of wine by our friends Marylin and Cheri. It is a 1991 Cabernet - can't remember the winery at this very moment - sorry Cheri :-( . Anyway, we will be opening that sucker the moment Mom walks into 327 N Russet for good. I will then leave for Las Vegas again on August 21st. Does it seem like we're in the height of life right now? Noooooooo. Hey, just wait until we complete our family and add Chloe to the bunch.