7 Quick Takes Friday...

--- 1 ---

Mae Bae is furious.  She's expanding her climbing skills after learning that she could jump from her crib and safely land on the ground.  This morning, while upstairs getting ready, I heard screaming.  It stopped and started again a few minutes later.  It turns out that Mae Bae had climbed up to retrieve my rosaries from their spot in the kitchen (I'd put them far back on the counter, while we unpack, and these counters are incredibly wide, but she does a chin up on the counter and pushes up with her feet to climb them...).  Paul took them away from her (she's an expert rosary snapper) and put up a baby gate.  A few minutes later the screaming began again when she quickly scaled the baby gate and retrieved the rosaries a second time.  My little climber.  Nothing in the house is safe.

--- 2 ---

Which leads me to yesterdays climbing debacle when, within 60 seconds of Paul walking in the door (and the alarm system announcing "back door open") Mae Bae rushed the alarm pad, climbed a large chest, stood on top of it and pressed a button (out of like 20) to contact the alarm company and set off the alarm.  Thankfully Paul was quick, punching in the key code, while I stood there, staring at Mae in disbelief while the alarm sounded.  I love that this house has an alarm.  I just have to figure out how to keep Mae from reaching it.

--- 3 ---

I have unpacked the living room, dining room, kitchen, girls' bedroom and bathroom almost completely by myself (Paul did do a few boxes in the kitchen and has cooked dinner twice after I collapse at around 5pm each night).  You see, in my head I had this picture of us arriving nearly two weeks before Paul classes started, and of him being around the house helping me unpack (he does carry the boxes down to the basement when he gets home).  I should have known that law school isn't like that.

The first reading assignment arrived yesterday.  And tasks that needed to be completed at the school pretty much devoured two entire days.  It's almost like schools already started.  Almost.  But not quite as horrible.

Today I'm expecting real help, because I might pull my hair out if I have another day of unpacking while Mae basically undoes everything that I do as I do it.  She screamed for five minutes when I put her pjs in a drawer yesterday (she wanted them out on the floor I guess).

So that I'm at least ready when school really starts and we don't see him again until Christmas break.

--- 4 ---

Sadie wants me to tell her the story of Saint Therese over and over again.  Yesterday she became focused (obsessed) on a certain part of the story... the part where Therese goes to the Bishop and then asks the Pope for permission to enter Carmel early.  She asked me to tell the story over and over again (can you see where this is going), focusing on how everyone said Therese was too young and asking question after question.

Can you guess where this is going?

And then she announced that when she was five she'd be going to live with the nuns and to be a nun and she wanted to know if the nuns were already talking about her coming to live there.

Yup.  Her determination is undeterred.

--- 5 ---

Since we know that this baby is going to be a boy, Sadie has turned her attention to... drumroll please... the next possible pregnancy.  She asked if the next baby might be a girl, if I wanted it to be a girl, and on and on about imaginary baby #5.  I pointed out that it might be nice for Patrick to have a brother too, if we are blessed again someday, although we'd all be happy with a boy or a girl, which led to talk about baby #6 and how that baby at least could be a Mary.

She's quite determined.

However, while we were purchasing a new crib at Walmart (that's another story altogether) I scanned the clearance section and found a bunch of outfits in Mae Bae's size in the $2-4 range.  When I held up a dress Sadie shrieked that our boy could not possibly wear that and demanded I put it back, while looking at me like I was insane.  So I guess she's warming to the boy idea.

--- 6 ---

She also announced that the baby would be excited to play Princesses with her and Mae Bae.  When I pointed out that he might not be into princesses she looked at me and said:

"Patrick will be delighted to be a knight."

Okay.

--- 7 ---

The crib.  Just thinking about our big, beautiful half disassembled crib, still makes my blood boil.  You see, the movers in Florida.... I can't even find the words.  I was angry when they left because they did 75% of the work in the first 3 hours (I'd prepaid for 4 hours) and then hung out outside talking to a girlfriend and dragging their feet and disappearing on and off for another 3 hours, while Paul had to basically keep on them the entire time to get them to do what they'd just been paid quite a bit of money to do.  (The workers that came to unload in Michigan were fantastic and deserve their own review for doing all the work in a fraction of the time and being pleasant and respectful...)

Deep breath.  

I could have killed someone when they took my great grandfather's beautifully ornate Chinese chest (the one thing I'd asked for when my grandmother passed away, because it always reminded me of visiting her...), put it down in the middle of the parking lot, left it there and came up and said "time's up, unless you right us a check for $50 an hour we're not going to work anymore" while I watched a worker with a weed whacker work right next to it.  

Anyways, when we got here it turned out their work was much worse than we'd imagined.  They'd stacked the light things on the bottom and the heavy things on top.  The furniture was seriously banged up, despite the ridiculous number of furniture pads I'd rented.  And they'd removed the screws from quite a few pieces of furniture and just set them on the pieces of furniture.  Can you guess what happened when the U-Haul started to move?

So... Pieces of the crib are missing.  Complicated metal pieces.  Pieces that we sought replacements for at the hardware store with no luck (you know those turning, locking kind).  

We tried to screw the crib back together with new screws, but it just wasn't working.

So last night we went out and bought a new crib, since Mae Bae still will not sleep outside of a crib.  

I still get pretty furious about the loose screws and bolts every time I think about it.  How was that a good idea?!?!?!

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