the nail fairy, two teeth halfway in and losing my dad again

yesterday morning i woke up to a very large scratch on story's face and although this was later determined to be caused by my ring sometime in our sleeping together, i feared it was the claw-like nails on both children so i clipped story's nails while he looked up at me patiently and had to do sea's while she was sleeping since she is normally very fearful of this (hence my avoidance of the task altogether). when she woke up she immediately looked at her nails and said something like "where did they go?" and so manuel, a quick thinking dad placed a quarter behind her head and said "the nail fairy came and got them...look, she left you a quarter!" so here is a photo of my "butterfly" costume holding story my little lady bug...i think these wings were meant to be fairy wings, though...

so that is one story i wanted to share but one of the most noteworthy milestones for story right now is that he has two top teeth that are halfway in! this is crazy because sea was so fussy whenever hers were trying to come in that i thought i would have signs including hard nubs that slowly poked through but i missed all this and yesterday, there they were, one completely crooked in a way only a mom could think was super cute...i'll try to get a photo of them today but story likes to keep things in his mouth and doesn't give me as many teethy grins as this one of sea at just about his age now (yes she had a LOT more hair and now that i'm looking at it, i guess it was a lot redder at that age)

finally, this one was taken of the two of them a couple of months ago. sea is so proud to be a big sister and story adores her...i put this photo in for several reasons...one to see that story and sea look more alike when they are (were) both about 9 months old so i think they will grow to look even more alike...but another reason i put this in was to remind myself of how much i love the two of them and to focus on them instead of moping around and feeling sorry for myself. part of me is so excited about moving in to our new house this next weekend...all the opportunities and new beginnings this will offer but another part of me feels like yet another door to my past is closing and i'm fundamentally depressed my dad can't be here during this stage in my life...

so i'll focus on my snuggles with sea and story "mommy, i want to yay on your yap..."

photos of our home "before"

several people have asked for "before" photos of our new home and since it will be awhile before we have any "after" photos (lots of "during" to follow if i'm up for it) i thought i'd at least post photos we took right after we closed escrow (no, they never wrote "sold" on the sign...guess they didn't really believe it would go through, either)...

we live on a one way street heading out of the cul-de-sac so the neighbors across from us are actually below us with an island in between. we have neighbors on both sides but our view out the back is across highway 8 looking at SDSU. this first photo shows most of the house (you can see the driveway in the bottom right which leads to the 2 car garage)

this is the far left side of the house (sea and story's bedroom on the left and hall bath on the right)

these are the two front doors in the middle and the entry way with tile (that has since been removed), story sitting up in the middle of the living room, a half brick wall dividing this room from the dining room to the right, and a 14 foot window that takes up most of the far wall looking out into our backyard (an olive tree and fountain/koi pond are what you see here)...we plan to paint these doors bright red and you can see the 70's circular glass in the door windows...

this is the other half of the house on the right side of the two front doors...you may recall this was where the 2 love birds were perched when we were in counter-offers...you can read more about this on my first post about this house (also gives more details of what i like about the house)

so now i'm going to go a little out of order and start the tour from the door between the garage and the house...this is the fourth bedroom (the one with the separate entrance for my mom or cousin or whoever to possibly live with us someday) and this view is inside the bedroom, of the closet, looking through the hall (garage to the right) and in to the bathroom

if you continue down this hall so that the garage door is behind you, you come to the washer/dryer and separate entrance shown here (supply closet would be in the hall behind you in this photo)

here is the view looking back down the hall to the garage door

so once you come through this door (you can see the washer peeking through the doorway) you enter our front room just in front of the kitchen...lovely nature mural wallpaper is gone i'm afraid...

here is the view of the sliding doors leading to the back yard...fireplace to your left and kitchen behind you to your right

ahh...here is the kitchen...we kept the 70's lights in this room and the dining room...there is a whole house fan in the ceiling in the kitchen

this is the dining room which is just on the other side of the right wall of the kitchen...you can see the pass through in the wall...eventually we want to move the fridge to the left side and take out the top half of this wall so there will just be an island between the kitchen and this room...the brick dividing wall is also gone...and all the carpets are out of the house so you can kind of see what the hardwood floors look like in this photo...the mail comes through a slot in this wall which i think will be exciting for the kids waiting for the mail man/lady to arrive each day...

this is the view through the kitchen into the dining room with the orange light and through the family room door into the living room (see the brick wall through the door) just to help orient you...

so if you go through that door, this is the living room with another dividing brick wall in between (also gone now)...here is story a couple months ago sitting on the carpet and you can see the 14 foot window and the brick fireplace on the right...the dining room is behind you to the right and this is the view pretty much from the front doors...

ok this is the opposite view so you can see the dining room and the tile in the entry way...the tile is now gone and we are trying to figure out how to match the hardwood to make these areas flow together...i wanted to keep the wood siding on this wall but there were big gaps once the walls came out so that, too is gone...

here is one last view of the two walls we took out...you can see the mural in the family room through the doorway...also, we took popcorn off all the ceilings...

so if you continue heading east with the garage, hall, family room/kitchen and living room/dining room behind you, there is this second L shaped hall (it curves to the right once you pass all these cupboards) that leads to the main bathroom on the left and then the three other bedrooms on the far left side of the house...sea's room would be in the left corner, story's in the middle and our master bedroom in the back of the house to the right...

this is the main bathroom just across the hall from those cupboards...we kept the 70's swirly counters but lost the ivy wallpaper and dividing glass to the toilet area...

so continuing down the hall, if you turn left, this is sea's room...appropriately aqua or sea colored complete with very bright aqua carpet (we kept this to make in to a rug but hope to have hardwood floors throughout the home). i love this little window seat for all her animals and friends to play in and hope to plant bouganvilla or a jacarunda tree just outside the window...

here is story's room...a little smaller...closet is to the right in this photo...

i didn't take very good photos of our room...once you enter, this window is to the left (facing east so the sun will come through this in the morning)...our two closets begin right behind manuel on the right and once you pass those you enter our bathroom...

you can see this carpet was even brighter...wallpaper is gone and we have replaced this sliding door...these are right across fromt the window you just saw...(bathroom is on the other side of this wall)

this is the view of part of the back yard (garage on the far left, laundry room window and then the sliding door to the family room. sea is by some birds of paradise plants and an olive tree that you can see through the living room window...

sliding door on the left, olive tree and fountain in the middle and the 14 foot window (our master bedroom is that wall on the right)

ok...that is it...here is sea running out the front doors...they will be painted bright tomato red at some point and these are two cammelia (sp?) bushes that should be blooming soon...it is an exciting process!! will post updates when we have time...can't wait to have open houses, entertain, have kids over to play, garden, etc...

tell me a story

last night manuel was painting with his brother at our new house (i can't call it our home until we are living there) and i was trying to put two children to bed at once (usually story goes to sleep around 8 while manuel tells sea a story and then i put her to sleep shortly thereafter). but this particular night they both decided they were ready for bed simultaneously...so despite the nursing challenges and odd angles required to make this happen, it was overall very sweet as they held hands and smiled at one another snuggling up with their mommy...at one point sea stopped and said "will you tell me a story?" which touched me on many levels i don't want to over-analyze here...so i guess there were a couple things i wanted to touch on...how my dad liked to tell stories, life as a story, story's life continuing on after the loss of my dad...these topics could go a lot further but in order to actually post this i'm going to just share some of the characters in the story manuel likes to tell sea...they are a mix of names he came up with/borrowed and some of the richard scarry characters including huckle cat, hop-a-long rabbit, lowly worm, "stow-bester" (the way sea pronounces sylvester), bow-wow puppy...and he makes up stories about daily life with them (usually they go to the beach) and sea always includes details from her own life to add to the story...sometimes she speaks in present tense about how she was there in the story with them...

speaking of sleep...i think sea is ready to go to bed so more later...

all the little things

so manuel and i are here together...listening to pandora "yo la tengo" station...after perusing several friend's blogs i thought it would be fun to write a blog together...he is really a talented writer (i'm quicking writing this part while he is in the bathroom)...he keeps a file he named "liquid" with his own thoughts, feelings, fears, hopes, observations, daily ramblings etc. in a free form style...he, too prefers all lower case letters but he is much more to the point and writes in short phrases, right justified...it is much easier to read...

this photo of sea and story was taken during our coop preschool...they were working on a craft together and there were so many "little things" in this photo...their baby feet, the sunshine filtered through her tutu, both of them engaged in life and oblivious to me capturing them, sea intently placing glue and sequins just so, the two of them together...anyway, my motivation for this post was not based on the photo, i just tried to find a recent photo of both of them that had "little things" in it...

basically i just wanted to corroborate with manuel to list little things we love and will miss that our children do daily or frequently or in these most recent moments...so here goes in no particular order...

--"too much" as in, i love these cookies "too much" or i'm having "too much fun"
--sea was recently in to counting and somehow we came up with "two ones" to describe her and her brother (they are each "one" and there are two of them) so manuel will say something like "how are my "two ones?"
--every day when manuel leaves for work sea will watch him walk to his car through the side window and then runs full speed to the front window to wave to him as he drives around the corner...he caught on to this and will stop in front of the front window and they blow kisses to each other back and forth until he finally has to leave...but she keeps blowing, very quickly and deliberately...i've gotten this on video but just realized it would make a cute photo with the huge window looking out over the bay and sea's sillouette blowing kisses and waving...
--story wants to climb more than anything right now...he'll go over, up, through so many places to get in to trouble but most specifically he loves to reach up to windowsills, pull himself up and climb up the wall...manuel and i have bets when he will walk...sea didn't crawl early but walked at 9 months and 1 week...story crawled at 5.5 months and manuel's prediction is thanksgiving (3 weeks from now! at 9 months) and i predict xmas just cuz i love his crawl and don't want him to lose it
--sea is really in to having people chase her...this is not new for her but has intensified now that story can crawl so quickly...so she'll find some toy he is really engaged with and then will slowly back away from him so he'll follow her and then she squeals at the top of her lungs and RUNS away and he crawls as fast as he can to catch her
--i know i've already written this one down but i will be sad when we leave our house with stairs...every time we leave or return to our apartment sea wants to act out the youngest daughter's role from the sound of music..."so long farewell" at the end when she goes up the stairs backwards on her bottom and then lies her head down on the top step to be picked up...sea will not get up until i pick her up and carry her in to the house...she kept telling us how she wanted us to get a different house that had stairs in it and it took me awhile to realize that is why
--sea has some cute ways she mispronounces words such as "hossible" for hospital and "gocker" for doctor...although she now corrects both of these when i use her old pronunciation...she still says "laylo" for yellow
--today we went to a birthday party and of course once the pinata came sea wanted to be the only child swinging the stick...so she kept trying to "help" the other kids and take another turn, stand too close for them to do it on their own, etc. and then all of a sudden she had an idea and ran into the woods there at the park and next thing i know she came back with her own stick...
--one of story's nicknames is "squeaky" cuz of some of the cute little sounds he makes
--one of our friends mentioned that he had always thought of sea as an "old soul" who had been around in a previous life and although i don't believe in that, she does like to place herself in to stories she is told...like my mom was telling sea a story about when she (my mom) was a little girl on the monkey bars and she fell and skinned both knees and sea's response was "i was there watching you...and i held your hand"

well on that note...sea likes to say "goodnight mama, goodnight" and kiss me ever so gently on my cheek like i do when i kiss her to bed at night...and although it is daylight savings and i "gain" an hour, if you've been following all my blogs on sleep issues, i'm sure i'll lose sleep somewhere...not meaning to end on a negative note but i am really tired...

i should add this post was almost entirely me with a few reassurances from manuel...i point that out because i really would like to put his words, his ideas, his way of talking in the body of some of my future blogs...keep your eyes out for them and/or post ideas you'd like us to write about...