Two weeks ago we think the first word that Taylor uttered was bottle. Matt was downstairs with Taylor and he was pointing at a bunch of things muttering uh and um and then Matt said what do you want? And Taylor said bot-tal. Matt said you want a bottle? And Taylor answered um and laughed. A few days later I was in the living room and Taylor was doing a similar thing, pointing and grunting. And I said what do you want? And he said ra-moot. I said did you say remote? He picked it up and laughed. Yesterday in the car he picked up a book about Dinosaurs and said Din-a-soor. We said did you say Dinnosaur and he repeated it. But he doesn't say these words again. He seems to only utter them once or twice in passing and then when he has said it that is it, time to move on to the next word. This would not surprise me because that seems to be how he works with most things...he sees things as a challenge like trying to climb up on the couch and he will do it over and over until he gets it and then he moves on to something else. And I think with communicating he will do what is quickest....like he will sign milk because he can't say it but he verbally told my mother Down when she was trying to rock him and he wanted nothing to do with it.

 

So the little guy is growing up. Walking, running, and climbing like crazy and now he is starting to really talk. Oh and let's not forget the destruction: banging, smashing, crashing, and tearing apart all things he can get his little hands on. Love him. It is so much fun to see the differences in Olivia and Taylor's personalities. I love and sometimes get upset by the dead-pan stare Taylor will give me when he is about to push his sippie cup or food off his tray. He stares right at me with this hard staret while pushign whatever it is onto the floor and then he waits for my reaction with tinniest hint of a smirk on his face as if he is saying So what are you going to do about it? Matt's Dad told me that Matt did a similar thing with his bottle when he was Taylor's age.  But you know, it is great to see his mind working. Oh there have been days when I thought I was losing my mind....when Olivia is yelling more this and that and Taylor is practicing sceeching and I have to lock myself in the bathroom for a minute and turn the fan on before I go insane. But then I am so happy to be home with them. Like this morning when I saw Olivia sweetly talking to Taylor and giving him her hand so he could get up on the couch. I am so proud and so lucky!

Olivia is struggling with the idea of moving again. I don't blame her. We have moved four times in the last three years...several were into temporary apartments and two were international moves. I am done too. I don't want to do it again ever if I have to but life works that way sometimes. The good news is if we get this house, we sincerely hope with all our heart that this is the last move for a very, very, very, long time.

 

Anyways Olivia is three and a half years old and so for lots of reasons she freaks out and even more so because we are once again sending her life into chaos. It breaks our hearts but we are ultimately doing it for her. We went far far out there as one guy said to Matt to find a hosue we could afford in a decent school district that is not hours and hours from my family but is still close enough for Matt to take the MBTA commuter line to work. We have seen over 300 houses online and 43 houses in person. We have put two offers on two houses and almost put an offer on a third but didn't because there were serious mold problems. The first house we were going to buy fell apart after we went through paying $500 for an inspection to find out that this beautiful old house was just too old and too much money and work to maintain and it had bad, bad levels of radon with no way to mitigate it. The first house had mold and we fortunately found that out before we put an offer in on it or paid for an inspection. This house has gone through the inspection and has minor things like new gutters that need to be put on but no major problems so it is looking good. Several houses we looked at had lots of trash and dirty clothes everywhere. We felt bad because it was like walking into a disaster zone and the sad part was you could tell that there was a lingering sense of desperation in the air coming from the people trying to sell the house who already dropped their price several times and really needed to get out before they couldn't. One house had a cemetary literally right outside the back kitchen window. Sorry but I didn't want to look at grave stones while drinking my morning coffee! Another house literally had the highway in the backyard to which the listing agent said, well if you shut all the windows, the owner says she never even notices the noise.  Most of those houses were much closer to the city but they were all we could afford in our price range. It was a real shocker to us to see that even though my husband makes decent money and even if I was working, after day care and everything we still could barely afford to be anywhere close to the city. THere are some places but they needed a lot of TLC and money or the schools were not so great or they would be very very far from my family. The truth is unless you have a good pile of cash, this is still not the best market to buy a house in because most people selling have to sell their house for whatever reason and don't have a lot of room for negotiating. So now after months and months and loads of craziness we think and are hoping that THIS house is going to work out. And so we have told Olivia that we are going to move again. We had to tell her because she listens to everything and when she doesn't understand, it only elevates the temper tantrums. In fact, she told us yesterday to STOP talking adult talk...about things she doesn't understand and talk about them when she goes to bed. Wow! We were floored.

 

But still I feel it is important to tell her about moving to prepare her and work through it all. I haven't said we have a house yet or talked about what it is like or anything in case it doesn't work out. I don't want to set unrealistic expecatations about what a house will be like only to have it fall through. But I have told her that we are going to move into a house at some point. She freaked and said she liked it here. Then she went through the list of all the things she owns, her Bitty Baby doll, her bed, Taylor's crib...then she went through every item in the house and asked if it was coming with us. I said yes and then she started asking is the stove coming? Are the windows coming? Are the doors coming? I said no. So she said then I bet the door handles aren't coming either. That was pretty cute. So now she is going through what is NOT coming. Then she asked me what about the attached lighting and the kitchen sink, are those coming? I was very surprised that she knows what attached lighting is but I think she asked about that because when we moved from Germany to here we had to take all attached lights (ceiling lights and what not) and yes, we also had to take the kitchen sink. When you leave an apartment in Germany, there are no ceiling lights, no kitchen cabinets, no stove, no counters, and no kitchen sink. So yeah we have had a very long journey to get here and get our stuff here and let's all hope and pray and do whatever to get us into a house, out of the city, and settled in!

 

Today I spent several hours researching rainwater rain gardens and safe ways to eliminate pests because I DO care about the environment and I DO want to do the right thing. I have recycled since I was twelve when I made my parents start taking their newspaper and glass to the town dump because back then they would not do curbside pick-up. In college I worked for several environmental groups on a volunteer basis. I started an environmental group in high school. My husband and I have had one car that we have shared for the better part of a decade. We both walk and use public transportation as much as we can. I make people crazy and try not to be annoying because I DO care about the environment. That is why it is so damn funny that I got an "environmental" offender ticket. A couple of weeks ago it was bike to work week in Cambridge. Matt and I woke up one morning to see that there was a bright orange ticket on our car and Matt went out there all upset because it would not be the first time we got a parking ticket even though we have a parking pass for Cambridge. No, we were ticketed because we drive a Honda Pilot SUV. THe irony is that I was about to put the "Eco" basket I made for a charity event, which was full of all safe earth cleaners and fair trade coffee and goods, into my car. I know it is not good to drive an SUV and believe me my husband and I debated back and forth about it but we couldn't afford the extra 5-7k to buy the hybrid and we needed something decent in snow because my sister really does live way out there in the snow and I haven't driven in snow in 7 years. Also the main reason we bought the car is because it is the safest in its class and Matt wanted something safe because his sister died in a car accident. But that's okay. You got us. You're right: I should strap my two kids on my back and bicycle around town. I am so tired of the holier than thou attitude. Answer me this: why is it so much MORE expensive to buy a hybrid and "do the right thing?" Sorry I was too poor to do the right thing. Sorry. But to our credit, it is better on gas then many cars. IF WE ARE GOING TO CHANGE THE ENVIRONMENT, WE HAVE TO MAKE IT COST EFFECTIVE FOR EVERYONE. PERIOD!

 

Now here is yet another reason I am DONE with the city. Our car got towed because we forgot to move it on the third Monday of the month because we parked on a different street due to no parking in front of our house and didn't realize that street cleaning was on third Mondays not Tuesdays like it is on our street. We have a parking pass but big deal, there is no parking most of the time anyway. They towed us.