The Reveal

At last, what you have all been waiting on pins and needles for -- pictures of our "new" house! :)

First - our new front door. Perhaps it lacks the conversation piece of our last front door that had two peep holes (including one that looked somewhat like a telescope on a pirate ship) and the four locks/chains... But we rather like it. It looks a bit out-of-place with the dark brown aluminum siding - but we hope to someday (soon?) update the exterior of the house...

Our new entry way.

Our new living room. It's green! We actually originally had it painted one shade lighter, but it looked awfully lime greeny, so we asked them to paint it a shade darker. For those of you who have been in the house before, this is one of the most transformed rooms. It used to have orangey panel wood walls, and ceiling beams. And we added (recessed) light! Oh, to see again. :) We used to have to light the room only with lamps and the light fixture in the ceiling fan, which lit the middle of the room (coffee table only) way too brightly, and the rest was in shadows. We actually have plans to replace this fan (without a fan light fixture), but we couldn't decide on a fan. The patio doors are relatively new (installed last summer), but finally had stain applied. And the new floors are engineered wood. Engineered because our house is on a concrete slab, and so putting in real wood floors would raise the floor too high.

The kitchen actually stayed almost exactly the same. Except for the new floors.

The breakfast nook looks the same, but actually has a new door and new bead board. Also, we painted the walls a brighter shade of yellow. This was Ben's play area, and we are re-establishing it as such - but this time it's for a slightly older child! I had just put together this table and chair from Ikea, but it was much too tall for him, so we sawed the legs on the chair and table. Even so, it's still a bit too big, so I bought a chair designed for smaller tikes, and will need to take the table a notch lower as well.

Our new dining room! Again, new floors and new paint.

Mark's studio. This also had quite a transformation. We put in carpet (to absorb sound), and two fixed fluorescent light fixtures (beats the shop lights we had hanging in here). Even though we had originally picked and painted the old color in here ourselves, we decided that we were over mint , so painted it a neutral color instead.

And we installed french doors! Now Mark can actually close off the rest of the house (or we can close off Mark) when he needs to practice! We're pretty excited about this!

The hallway with our bedrooms. New hardwoods (actual hardwoods, because the slab in this part of the house was built lower to accommodate hardwood). New paint. And a cool phone nitch that you can't really see. But it's cool all the same.

Ben's room. The one wall with the window is blue, the rest are yellow.

The hall bath. Obviously completely remodelled (if you'll remember the pink tile and blue sink, bathtub and toilet). You've seen this shot before, but this time boys on toilets are removed.



Another shot of the bathroom. Mark pretty much was the stylist of this, and was going for a modern look.

I however, was the "designer" of these cut-outs to hold shampoo and soap. :)

Our master bedroom. Just a couple of changes here, including Elfa closet organizers from the Container Store. They were easy to install (except for the top hanging bar, I installed the whole thing myself), and they hold a lot of stuff!

We gained some unused space from our master bath remodel, so we took advantage of it by building a built-in bookshelf right at the entry of our bedroom.

Our Master Bath, with which Mark went for a more traditional look.

Our new master shower. Almost 2x as big as our old one.

That's it for the tour! Here's a final shot of Benjamin enjoying breakfast in his new spot. Once we get a bit more settled, we'd love for you to come visit and take a tour in person!

Happy Valentine's Day!!

Happy Valentine's Day everyone! We've had a fun couple of days so far of valentine's day celebrations - and I am sad that I have so few posts over the last few months to capture these early days with B-dogg, so in the spirit of fixing that, I'll let you know about our valentine's celebrations in more detail that you want to hear (but in the detail I wish to remember it by!)

First, yesterday, Benjamin had a Valentine's Day party at school. They made valentines for Mom & Dad (see picture below), and apparently everyone but us brought valentine's cards/treats for their classmates. :) I had asked his teacher last week what I was supposed to bring for Valentine's Day, and she said "the kids aren't terribly interested in the cards, so don't worry about sending anything" - so I was a bit embarrassed to bring home the valentine's cards, stickers, candies and playdough that his classmates gifted him. :)

Benjamin also got some early valentine's day love from Sophia, one of his older classmates (she's almost 3). When Mark arrived to pick-up Ben yesterday, he was laying on his mat - looking like he was still waking up (they take naps at the end of the day - sometimes we have to wake him up when we arrive) - and Sophia was quietly stroking his hair. I wish I could have seen it - it sounds so sweet. Today (we'll get to why today in a moment), Ben's teacher (Michelle) was telling us that Sophia has taken Benjamin under her wing. She follows him around, helping him out. When he's especially "mouthy", Michelle gives him a teether to chew on. Apparently, when he leaves it somewhere, Sophia takes it to him, so he won't be without it. She also does things like hold his hand and walk him to the slide when they go outside (I'm sure he's perfectly capable of finding the slide on his own, but she doesn't know that), etc. Very sweet. Mark congratulated Ben on getting his hair stroked by a girl at such a very young age. Perhaps we have a future ladies' man on our hands? :)

This morning, Mark made French Toast and we enjoyed a family breakfast together, and then opened valentines. Thank you to all our friends & family for the special gifts for Benjamin (particularly because I didn't buy anything for him this year)! I then opened my gift from Mark - a robe, which Benjamin was very excited to try on.

And just a little while ago, Michelle came for our "home visit" - which is a visit planned soon after starting at the school - so the child can spend some time with the teacher in a familiar environment. Benjamin went NUTS. Apparently, this is a very common reaction - showing off for teacher. He was running at full speed all around the house, shouting, laughing, spinning in circles, acting like a crazy boy. It was really quite funny to see. I don't know that I have seen this child carry on with such vigor for such a long time. He's certainly going to sleep well this afternoon!
Tonight, we are taking Benjamin to our friends' house to babysit for their almost-3 year old and their newborn, so that they can go on a date. Tomorrow we are going to the Celtic Festival at Ben's school/church, and then tomorrow night, Mark and I have a date of our own!!

We hope you all have a wonderful Valentines Day - with lots of love from the Griffiths!

(ps - I'll try to post some pictures of the house this afternoon during Ben's nap...)

Pee-Pee in the Potty

On exactly his 20-month birthday, Benjamin went pee-pee in the potty for the first time!! What a big boy!!

Now, I know it was most likely pure accident, but I was so excited nonetheless, and certainly carried on enough for him to know it was a big deal.

Here's the story: A few days ago, I bought a cheap little potty seat from Ikea to keep in the bathroom. Partially because Benjamin has recently shown interest in the potty (he absolutely LOVES to flush the toilet- and in fact, flushing is a reward for keeping still during diaper changes - and he also knows what to do with toilet paper - if you give him a piece, he'll wipe his bottom), and partially to keep in sync with his new school. You see, in his new class, they do all the diapering standing up. We have diapered Benjamin standing up for wet diapers for a few months now, but we were both way too intimidated to try changing poopy diapers standing up. But Ben's new teacher gave us a few pointers, and diaper changing has been WAY easier now that we do it standing up. The actual diapering part is a bit harder - but having a much more compliant child during the process makes it overall much easier (instead of trying to manage a thrashing toddler lying down). So, back to the story... At his new school, after the diaper is removed and the child cleaned up, they ask the child if he/she wants to sit on the toilet (an actual toilet in his school - very low to the ground). I wanted to keep the same ritual at home, so hence the purchase of a potty seat.

Ben definitely likes sitting on his potty seat from time to time - mostly he likes it with his clothes on. But tonight, as we were getting ready for bath, I took his clothes off, we flushed the toilet (no - nothing was in the toilet - just the reward for taking his clothes off), and I asked Benjamin if he would like to sit on the potty. He wanted to, so we got him on it, and after instructing me to also sit on the toilet (he likes company when on his potty seat), he sat there for a moment, and then looked at his penis, and what do you know, the kid was peeing! He immediately wanted to get up, so we got off the potty, took a look at what was inside (me cheering the whole time, except to instruct him, that no, we could not touch what was inside the potty). Then I wasn't sure quite what to do - I hadn't been expecting this! So I poured the pee in the toilet, wiped it up with some toilet paper, and we celebrated with another flush to send it all down.

Like I said - probably pure accident, but it was fun all the same!!

And now, a picture from this morning of Benjamin practicing (with Mark keeping him company, per Ben's request) - and no, neither of them are actually going (they are both fully clothed)... Oh, and they are currently cheering, which is what we do whenever Benjamin sits on the potty, period. :)

Congratulations, Benjamin! You're getting to be such a big boy!

Breaking up is hard to do...

Sorry - no pictures yet - but we are slowly getting moved back into our house. It's wonderful to be home, but also I have a lot of complicated feelings about a number of things, so I'm not totally living in the bliss of being a simple family, in a simple home yet. One of those complicated things is moving Ben to a new daycare program. I'll see if I can explain why these feelings are so complicated. It's been weighing heavily on my mind all week. So for now, house updates and pictures will have to wait.

Benjamin has been in a Mother's Day Out program at a nearby Lutheran church since we returned to Houston post-Ike - 4 months. In those four months, he's grown and blossomed under the attentive care of our beloved Ms. Nathalie in his tiny infant's class. He's been happy, busy and entertained for 30 hours per week - making working, trying to rebuild our home, and the general complicatedness of living in someone else's house much more bearable. But even more, I think, I've learned that someone else can help me care for my child - and he can be in an "institutional" setting, and be loved and thrive - and I can be guilt free about it all. That has been a truly wonderful gift, and one we really needed at that point in our lives.

Now, we did not intend to stay in this program long-term. After researching different programs, I became strongly convicted that I wanted Benjamin to be in a Montessori program - but with such long waiting lists, that proved hard to find. And Ms. Nathalie is truly a rare gem in the school - she has a master's degree in early childhood education (and it shows in her creative games with the children), and she is so warm and bubbly and outgoing - the moment you walk into her classroom you feel at ease and content. But the issue is that the teacher for the next level actually gives me the opposite feeling. So while I loved having Benjamin in Ms. Nathalie's class, I wanted to move him to a new program before he transitioned to the next level. Mark and I were pretty sure that would happen this summer.

So it came with great surprise when we received an offer to enroll Benjamin in the montessori program at a nearby Episcopal church. We had been on the waiting list for almost a year, and two children had moved out of the program, creating a 4-day opening. They, of course, would not hold the opening for us until summer, and there were no guarantees about when the next opening would be if we turned down this spot. So here the dilemma lay. We could transition Ben now into the Montessori program - leaving behind our beloved Nathalie, and do this amidst our move back home - when our lives were already going to be turned upside down. Or we could wait, and risk Benjamin not getting into this school for another year - which would also mean he would likely transition into the next teacher's class. We weren't thrilled with either option. But, ultimately, I didn't want to lose his spot in the class - so we took it.

Then began the question about when to start him in the new program. We originally were going to wait until the end of February - to give Benjamin a chance to settle back into the house - so we weren't changing everything in his life at once. But Mark has an unusually light schedule these first two weeks of February, and we both pick up speed in the second half with work commitments. That paired with his old school being closed for the last two days in January, we decided to take the plunge. And truthfully, it has been a hard transition.

Although, I think the transition has been the hardest on me. Part of it is that I had to go tell his old school on Monday that we were leaving. And because we only decided to transition Ben to his new school after the old school was closed for a couple of days, we gave his old school no warning. I dreaded that conversation with the school director and Ms. Nathalie. They had been nothing but wonderful to us. How could I explain why we were leaving? They were both very understanding and although sad to see us go (and not without saying wonderful things about Benjamin), embraced our decision with understanding and kindness. I made it through the conversation with Alice pretty well, but was pretty much sobbing through the whole conversation with Ben's teacher.

So with that conversation over, I thought my feelings would settle - but they haven't. And I think it's because we're leaving something that we know is good for now, and trading it for the unknown. The teachers and staff at Ben's new school are very nice - but we don't know them yet like we know his old school. And Ben was the "backbone" (director's words) of the infant program at his old school - as when we left, he was the only full-time child, and actually the only one enrolled on Fridays - and so received a lot of one-on-one attention. His new class is full - and granted it is only 8 children - but it is still so different.

And it's hard because Benjammin has been a total fussbucket lately. Now it could be due to a number of factors - his cold, his very dry, itchy skin (yes, apparently we do have periods of low humidity in Houston), his horrible sleeping lately (up three times last night - and it took me four visits to his room to get him to fall asleep tonight), or just his being a willful toddler. But the catastrophizer in me attributes it to his transition to his new school - which I chose - and therefore makes me feel horribly guilty that his unhappiness was preventable, and was in fact caused by my decision.

And finally, I think my emotions tied to this transition are also about feeling guilty about leaving his old school. The director and teacher were so supportive as we went through all the emotions of starting a child in daycare for the first time, amidst the craziness of initial recovery from the hurricane. And their infant program is struggling a bit right now with low attendance - so I feel like a traitor and ungrateful to pull Benjamin out when they actually sort of need him there too. Feelings like they were there for us when we most needed help, but now we're abandoning them.

It truly does feel a bit like breaking up with a boyfriend. And I suppose when it comes to daycare, this is our first - so perhaps it's all the harder because of that.

I'm sure as Ben gets settled into his new program, I'll be more confident that we made the right choice. Mark already is. But as we continue to transition into our new "normal", I imagine I'll have a few more adult meltdowns to accompany Benjamin's toddler versions.

Sorry if this made no sense, or seemed trivial - I know I'm sort of rambling. But I started this blog with the intent of documenting our journey into parenting for future reading. And this is one more reminder of how intense parenting is. And how you really don't get feedback on your decisions for years to come...