At church yesterday, I had two women come up to me and compliment me on Christopher, how they've "never" seen him fuss. Now I know better. But it was a very sweet comment. We usually bring Christopher up to the front of the church to sit with us in the choir at Communion, and he hangs with us the last 10 minutes of the church service. He's usually content during this time because A. he gets to watch lots of people coming and going at the communion rail, and B. He's been away from us for about an hour...refreshing for all involved. Another lady told me how amazing he is, that he never seems to be pulled down by all that has happened and continues to happen. Yeah. Failure to Thrive...my Aunt Fanny. But possibly...quite possibly... he just may be Good Kid too.
Last night, Chris was a maniac. bouncing on a booth seat while we had pizza with his BF Bryn and her family at Monical's (yum-O!) and he wiped out, I thought he got his freshly pinched fingers, but it turned out he banged his feeding tube, real good. It bled a nice bit, and he cried a bit, and Daddy walked him about for a bit, and then he was fine. My friend Amy told me he was Brave. Indeed, he is the bravest person I know. He is not hampered by his situations. Chris doesn't stop jumping or playing or smiling just because he may hurt. He plugs on. He keeps jumping and keeps playing, and most of all, keeps smiling. I am proud to be his Mother.
I suppose I could stop there, but I mentioned Both my Boys, and so I shall keep tooting horns. Eric had Lasik surgery on Friday. Now that alone is braver than me. The mere idea of zapping my eyeball, let alone being conscious while someone or some thing holds my eye open while they zap me. They don't have enough drugs for me for that.
Consequently, Eric was theoretically going to be out of commission for the weekend. We had not much planned. We have a PROJECT that we wanted to work on, and that was it. Theoretically, we'd like to get Christopher moved into the back bedroom by his birthday. We've picked up an inflatable toddler bed, and we think he may enjoy getting that for his birthday and then promptly using it. The theory being that will help transition him from crib (required for the new baby) to big boy bed. So, his birthday is the goal. Well, once we did a little planning, we realized, we better do the painting while we're off for Thanksgiving. If you back track from there...Holy Cow...we have to empty out the back bedroom...Before Thanksgiving!
I give you Exhibit A.
This would be our Before Picture. The Back Bedroom could be otherwise known as the Catch-All of Crap. There are finite paths to navigate back there. My sewing started as occupying a corner, then the corner took over an entire side of the bed. The closet took all our dressup clothes, luggage, and a great assortment of stuff. Chris's closet got full, and we kept being given more bags of clothing, which I was NOT turning way, and so they take up more and more room. As getting back there got harder and harder, the crap just overflowed. I would venture to guess that we haven't been able to get the vacuum more than 3 feet into the room in a couple years. Luckily, it's been our "Animal Free" room, so the dust doesn't seem to be as nasty as in other areas where animals (and children) roam with their own dust and hair.
So, a couple weeks ago, Eric emptied the closet...into the living room. Last week, we cleared Almost everything from said closet and the dresser, and reorganized the master closet, depositing a bin or two in the crawlspace, and made serious donations to Goodwill. Saturday morning, Eric and I recovered from breakfast, by sitting, and making a list. I come from a long line of list makers. The problem lies in that I NEVER complete said list. We did. This weekend, we wrote a list, of what we'd like to accomplish on the weekend, and Eric finished all of them but 1 by late Saturday night. Eric broke down the old Closet shelving, getting it set to remodel with moveable shelves like Chris's and the Master closet. He drilled for new stuff, and then fixed the drywall stuff (or at least round one which has to dry for 24 hours before sanding), fixed the broken phone jack, patched a couple drywall holes that had been created in the previous fixings of phone and lights. We even managed to create and run over a load to Goodwill. The final item on the list, take a load to our friend's house we did last night, and celebrated our completion of the list by going out for pizza. We have this wonderful friend (and I'm not just saying that because she occasionally reads this) who has offered us a corner of her rather spacious unfinished basement for storage of excess crap until we move. There is a lot of it. We only took 1 carload over, and we're only about halfway through the one room. That is love.
This is Exhibit B.
Now we can see an empty closet, a clear corner (we moved the dresser into the living room to patch drywall), and to take the picture I'm standing on the other side of the bedroom, where my yarn and fabric storage bins were piled, where previously we were unable to access.
And we all 3 still managed to nap on Friday, Saturday, AND Sunday.
I have a couple of great Boys. I know...You knew that.