New times, new blog

Our growing family has outgrown this blog. To see our new password-protected photo-journal (updated weekly) go to www.beattiemoss.shutterfly.com and sign up as a member.

The password is the name of the city my parents were born in. If that doesn't help you,
just drop me an email at melissabmoss@gmail.com

Thanks!
M.

Summer Evening in the Park

Stress levels are still generally riding high around here, mostly due to work deadlines and Sophie (still!) not sleeping through the night. "Fatigue" just doesn't cover how deeply exhausted we are...Yowza! But even though we're working quite hard these days (did I mention we're building a house? did I mention that involves thousands of teensy-weensy yet critically important decisions? did I mention how tired we are?) our spirits are fortified by lovely moments such as depicted here. Enjoy!

Meeee-OW!

No, we haven't gotten a cat. The above photo is meant to illustrate our current situation: We unpacked our boxes in our apartment and tried to settle in, only to discover that the wall-to-wall carpet has a pervasive, stomach-turning cat piss odor. The previous tenants (or generations of tenants...there's huge turn-over in these apartment units) had a cat or multiple cats who seemingly enjoyed peeing on the carpet in the dining room. It's gross enough that there's wall-to-wall carpet in a dining room. When Sophie dropped a chunk of banana onto the floor and I bent down to pick it up, that's when the unmistakable CAT PEE! message really reached my brain. Since then we've had a long stretch of rainy weather which has made the cat pee so unbearable that we've actually moved out temporarily. Luckily for us, my parents' trip to Germany for two weeks coincided with this stinky crisis. So we packed Guthrie off to "doggie summer camp" --AKA the luxury kennel he loves to go to--and we hightailed it over to the Mom and Dad's swanky digs on the other side of town, where we enjoy the clean hardwood floors, hotter showers, and a beautiful view from the living room of the empty lot next door where our house will be built. Our "moving in day" in November can't come soon enough. I loved my cat and still miss her...but Lordy the smell. There is hope though. The apartment management recognizes the problem and is replacing the carpet this week while we're away, and then we plan to buy and run ionizing air purifiers for good measure. Cat odors are the main issue, but we also are adjacent to a parking lot, there's tons of pollen about, plus the place also kinda reeks of air fresheners used over the years, no doubt in attempts to mask the toxic fumes arising from the cat litter box they kept in the dining room...Gaaaaaah!

Okay, enough of that. How's the family, you ask? We're all fine. The Cliffnotes on the kiddos:

Sophie: 17 months old, our spirited girl, climbing EVERYTHING, throws a ball like a 5 year old, would live on tomatoes, strawberries and water in her ideal world; distributes kisses every evening, not speaking much yet or rather speaks her own distinct argot: "Isitabus?" and "Isitgold?" are frequent questions: You'd be amazed to know that "Is it a bus?" and "Is it gold?" are often quite appropriate things to ask. She also has a wide vocabulary of distinct dog barks. We're so proud.

Noah: AKA Spiderman---He has discovered a passion for indoor rock climbing walls and man, is he GOOD at it! Strong, fearless, smart...Up he goes, right to the top. His other super powers: Reads whole books in a single bound; Surfs the--what else?--Web with alacrity. We're counting down until camp in late June, two whole weeks away from home. It'll be great for him and of course we'll be counting the days until his return!

Anne and I had a good Mother's Day, mostly focused on making it a nice day for Pauli. Anne brought her to my parents' house for a lunch I purchased at Wegmans and then arranged artistically on plates at home. Good not to have to cook since we'd gotten back from Philly at 1 a.m. the night before. It all worked out fine. Pauli is using a walker now and tires very easily, but had a nice afternoon with us.

I promise photos in the next post. Plus more info about our new house-to-be...We're getting pretty excited about the whole thing and feel, more than ever, that this is the RIGHT decision.

The end of an era

Everyone is sleeping and I should be too...but I may pack a few more boxes before flopping into bed. Tonight is the last night in this house...this house that has been home for five years. So much has happened in our lives while we've lived here...Noah went from kindergarten to 5th grade; Pauli had five good years spending time with us and enjoying living with Anne; I got a second Master's degree and found a good job here; Anne and I decided to have another child---and welcomed beautiful Sophie. We've gotten through some sad times and some tough challenges--both my grandmothers' deaths; Pauli's strokes and move into assisted living; my mother' s heart surgery--as well as all of life's normal ups and downs. we've celebrated so many things--friendships, parties (big, blow-out July 4th parties!), Pauli's 90th birthday, Sophie's 1st birthday, achievements large and small, Shabbat dinners and Sunday brunches...Quiet times sitting on the deck swing together, eating fudgesicles and watching the sunset, and amazing times like the double rainbow that arched over our house...or the time the hot air balloon almost emergency-landed in our back yard! Memories of Noah and Guthrie--little boy and puppy--playing together with the hose in the kiddie pool...Memories of some hard times, trying to juggle all our care-taking roles...Wondering when the time would come when we would have less responsibility (elder care is hard!) and feeling at times like this big house was just another demand on our time and energy...but despite the tough moments, feeling grateful for the space and light and security this house has given us...

And now it's time to move on. Tomorrow bright and early, the movers will arrive to carry our furniture and boxes out the door...

A new era is about to begin for our family, one we're very ready for. One with an emphasis on "just enough and not too much" and peace, organization, fulfillment...

May it all come to be...after one more night's rest under this roof!

An insanely busy time

This will be a short post, just to share that we are unbelievably busy at the moment. Even I, who generally likes to be busy, am finding this a lot to handle. Between getting ready for our move (in three weeks!) and working full time, plus making endless decisions about the new house we're having built and getting all that paperwork signed so the construction can begin, plus getting Noah to his various activities, and the exhausting nights with Sophie, and with my fibromyalgia symptoms in a painful flare-up...no wonder I'm stretched to the limit here. I haven't even mentioned that Anne broke her foot again and is in pain...or that she's juggling all this plus daily visits to her mother (Pauli is now back in assisted living).

BIG SIGH.

It will all work out. Moving is just so stressful. I wish I could take off work for a month to deal with all this, but since that's not possible I'll have to find a way to do all of this.

There's a lot of good stuff going on...In fact, it's mostly good (except for the health struggles...working on improving that.) Trying to keep my focus on the positives: We sold the house, we figured out where we want to move, we are really looking forward to our new chapter in the new house, we're both gainfully employed, the children are wonderful, it's great having my folks nearby, we have terrific childcare help in Evelina and we've found an excellent new (live-out) nanny for when she leaves, it's starting to feel like spring.

Well, this wasn't SUCH a short post after all. It's 10 minutes before 10 and Anne just came downstairs with Sophie who resisted an hour-long attempt to put to bed. Dear God, why oh why couldn't we have gotten ONE child who goes to sleep easily and sleeps through the night? (None of the three kids were good sleepers as babies, Arthur included.) They're such great kids...and Sophie---the worst sleeper of all three---has a delightful personality: cheerful, affectionate, curious, a great sense of humor. But not a sleeper. I guess we can't ask for everything.

Anne put her into the playpen for a little while (she's in there now "reading" books) and I'll try again with the night-night routine in a second.

Time to sign off and get busy, busy, busy again.

The many moods of Sophie Isabelle

To make up for not posting for so long, here's a bonanza of photos of Sophie taken one evening about three weeks ago. Our little baby girl is getting big so fast...and she's keeping us laughing with her many expressions and "busy busy busy" activities around the house.

Hanging out with the family. Check out big brother Noah on the computer in the background!

Breaking free, ready to run!


Siblings and good friends



Sophie's furry big brother, outside on the deck



A pensive moment



Pretending to be a crawling baby is so much fun!




Who are you lookin' at?



What the heck does this expression convey?



As I was saying...



Let's see...what's that number for late-night milk delivery?


Message machine? Drats!

A big lapse in blogging...and big news!

Hello there to anyone who tunes in to our blog from time to time. It's been way too long since my last family update. We've been in major "coping/functioning/no time to think" mode with so much going on in our lives at the moment. The very good news: We've sold our house! The closing is set for the end of April and we're delighted to be moving forward. Speaking of moving, what do you do when you sell your house but have nowhere to move? The answer used to be "crash with Mom and Dad" but that's no longer so easy when we're a family of five (with Evelina) plus the dog. House-hunting was a discouraging experience. We saw a bunch of houses, but not a single one seemed right. A brief summary: There was the Mold on Basement Wall house; the Steep Driveway/Psychotic Neighbor house; the Amazing Curb Appeal but Smells Bad Inside house; there was the Mismatched Linoleum/Tile/Carpeting house; the Pepto Bismol Pink Bathroom house; the Greco-Roman Wall Coverings and Mural house; etc.

After seeing all these places, we finally realized that our best option, for many reasons, would be to build in the condominium community my parents recently moved into. We're feeling very "been there, done that, don't need to do it again" about yard work, shoveling snow, deck staining, mowing...all that home maintenance stuff that is expensive and eats up your free time. We've never been into grilling outdoors and we'd be satisfied with creating small-scale gardens around our house and in containers on our porch and deck. So........another big announcement....we have put money down on the lot next to my parents and are getting the contracts signed soon...Yeeeee-ha! My folks are delighted and we are too. We'll enjoy those walking and biking trails a lot, and it'll be great to walk Noah to school every day. And as my dad put it recently "It's amazing...I don't even own a snow shovel any more" --- Sounds good to me!

Signing off for now. Photos of the kids will be posted tomorrow!

Getting through the winter

It's been a month since I've updated the blog, perhaps a record lapse.

It's been a challenging month.

On our minds:

Anne's mom: Pauli ("Nana" to the kids) fell last week and fractured her pelvis in two places.
We spent 5 hours in the emergency room with her and then she was transfered to a nursing home (adjacent to her assisted living residence) for at least 6 weeks of rehab. Poor Nana! It's not easy to cope with injuries at 91, but she's got a strong constitution and we're hoping she'll be able to go back to her assisted living room when rehab is over. Needless to say, we're thinking about her (and visiting her) a lot, and hoping for the best.

Fibromyalgia: My struggle with fibro has intensified lately. Major muscle pain (especially neck and ribs) and headaches and mental fuzziness and fatigue. No fun at all. I'm back to raw food eating and juicing and taking supplements (malic acid, enzymes, etc.) and trying to keep my spirits up.

Sleep: Sophie's sleeping pattern hasn't improved...She wakes every couple hours. We are getting VERY exhausted by this demanding night-time parenting. On two separate occasions, for no apparent reason, she slept through the night---and then immediately reverted to the frequent waking pattern again. I don't know what to say about this...We've read the books and we've tried lots of approaches...but we'll have to keep looking for some solution, because we all need our sleep!

Real estate: We have some nibbles on our house---and we continue to house-hunt as well. Email me for more details if you'd like.

Work: I don't believe in blogging about my work life...Suffice to say, I've taken on some interesting new projects and I'm trying hard to do a good job at them, regardless of life being rather demanding lately.

That's the mid-February update. More cheerful and photo-filled posts to come soon...Counting my blessings...Ready for spring! Ready for change!!!