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...

Home Sweet Home

We're home!!

Actually, technically we're not 100% there, as we are still sleeping in the loft - since I'm paranoid about dust, paint, carpet, and general new house fumes. But we spend our waking hours there, and -supervised - Ben is finally allowed inside the house too. We have a couple of nice days coming up, so I'm hoping that with some more cleaning and more open-window air-out time, that we'll return to our house permanently on Sunday.

So the house overall turned out beautifully. We love the upgraded bathrooms, the new floors and we picked out some rather bold paint colors that ended up looking pretty cool (at least we think so). Some of the details aren't so great though - and we're trying to not let that bug us. The engineer in me is trying not to obsess about crooked light switches and mis-aligned cabinet knobs. The handyman in Mark is trying to not obsess about all the parts of the job that would have been cheaper and turned out better if he had done it himself. But the house is truly way nicer than it was pre-flood, and we're both so relieved and grateful to have a home of our own again.

And so far, it looks like our stuff made it through the move okay. We were both pretty nervous about that - as we hired movers to pack and move our stuff into storage - unsupervised - as we were desperately trying to get the house back into order in the early days when we thought it would be a matter of days - or at the most - weeks. However, despite very serious orders from Mark to NOT pile anything on top of the percussion instruments, when he went to pull the furniture from storage, he found boxes and chairs piled on top of the xylophone, vibes and marimba. Gasp. Mark has examined but not yet played the instruments. They look okay, but there may be rattles and other extraneous noises when they're played. Those are hard to get rid of and difficult to say whether they're from age or from the storage situation. We're both dreading the process of dealing with a claim with the movers and figuring out how to get the instruments fixed if they are. Let's just hope for the best.

Our furniture (or at least the furniture that we are not replacing) is back in the house, and about 60% of it has been cleaned. Once we finish cleaning and unpacking for immediate needs (clothes & kitchen stuff), we'll embark on unpacking and cleaning the contents of the 75 boxes still in storage. We're planning on paying for the storage locker for the month of February - so that should give us plenty of time to deal with our stuff. Oh, all our stuff. Who actually needs 75 boxes worth of stuff?! I'm hoping by the end of this, it won't be us. :)

And amidst all of this change, we are also moving Benjamin into a new daycare program. There is now space in the small church Montessori program that has been at the top of our list for almost one year. Today was his first "transition" day into the program - where he and I spent an hour visiting the class together. Mark continues the transition tomorrow - and I think he leaves Benjamin in the room for about 15 minutes. Our little man has been such a trooper - and I think he will transition well. He slept in 4 different places over the last four nights - as we moved from the loft to a hotel, to another hotel, to our house (until I decided the next day that it was still too fumy), back to the loft...

Anyway, it is with mixed emotions that we make this move to the new program. I'll have to write more about that in another blog entry.

In the meantime, please pray/think good thoughts that the fumes will dissipate, the dust will soon settle (and not contain lead particles, which I OBSESS about these days), and that our house will soon be a healthy place for Benjamin to live. Oh yeah, and that I too will soon stop obsessing about whether the house is "settled" enough to live in 24-7. And finally, that Benjamin will make a smooth transition into his new class. Thanks. :)

I'll try to take pictures of the house soon and post them - but unless I do so before Sunday, it may be a while. The router for our internet is packed away somewhere in those 75 boxes...

Delays...

But it looks like we may finally be in our house soon. Latest estimate (as of today) is Tuesday. So keep us in your thoughts over the next few days as we migrate back into our house - it's going to be crazy and chaotic, and probably not much fun. But it will be so nice to be home for the first time in 4.5 months.

Brief Update, Long Overdue

Thanks faithful blog readers, for sticking in there with us even though we haven't updated the blog in FOREVER! At least, I assume you're one of the ones who didn't give up on this blog if you are reading this post. :)

So - no - we did not get back in the house for Christmas. Or New Years. Things really slowed down during the holidays, which was really tough for me especially, because I was sure we would be back in the house by the end of the holidays - so as everyone was getting back into the routine of getting back to work, etc., we went back to the routine of living in our friends' third story townhouse. That was a bit of a low for me.

We did actually have a pretty nice holiday, though, with lots of family to help pass the time, and help watch Ben so we could get a few things done. I hope to follow-up later with a post with pictures of our holiday fun.

Today marks the four-month mark since we were chased out of our home by Ike. At that time, I packed three days worth of clothes - who could have known that it would be over four months before we would get to return! It's just crazy to think back about those couple of days before the storm, when we had no idea that our lives were about to get turned upside down.

The latest estimate is that the house will be ready by the end of the month. We're hoping for much sooner, as our "hosts" have friends coming for a visit from overseas in a week-and-a-half, so we need to vacate for at least four days at that time. I have a feeling we'll be staying in a hotel - which is okay - but, obviously, would much rather be in our house!

Things are beginning to move along again, so that is encouraging. The bathrooms are almost complete (just built-in medicine cabinets to be installed), the ceramic & wood floors are down and sealed (as of today), the walls are painted (with rather cool colors, at least we think), the doors are in, the trim is up. So what's left? Engineered wood floors, carpet, second coats of paint, and lots and lots and lots of clean up. The "fit and finish" as our contractor calls it, can take a while - so while it doesn't seem like there is that much left to go work-wise, it sounds like time-wise there still is.

I'll try to take pictures next time we're at the house and post them - but the last of our holiday visitors (Mark's parents) are leaving in a few days, and our "hosts" at the Hippie Commune return tomorrow (after 4 weeks away traveling), so I have a feeling life is going to get hectic again rather soon.

But hang in there with us - we'll try to post again soon!