The Grand Reveal | Part 1

Readers, before this new year gets too far out of the gate, we wanted to reveal all we did at the close of the last, as promised. This all started with a desire to get some of the bambini's toys out of great big bins which Clara, in particular, often wouldn't paw down to the bottom of, to give them another area in which to play, and--selfishly--to make the living area look a little more adult-friendly as well. Such is cottage living, where pretty much every room and everything does double and triple duty.

Truth be told though, we probably wouldn't have done as much as we did if Julie hadn't asked Ted to rehang the ill-hung-seven-years-ago-and-it's-fine-and-we're-leaving-it!!!!! curtain rod in the dining room as she replaced the aforementioned gray-nee-white drapes in that room. Once the drapes were down, one could see how horrid the window frames looked, which led Ted to scrape and repaint them. Well, if you've got the paint out, you might as well do the bathroom window that's been mocking you for at least a year, and get after the windows in the bambini's room, too. All told, five windows were repainted.

A similar logic led us to repaint the bambini's room. We repainted it the same color so one doesn't get the same thrill that comes with seeing a new color go up, but one does get the but-we-don't-have-to-prime! thrill, which is not to be lightly dismissed.

So here are the bambini's new digs, replete with more toy storage, a rug in the living room (no doubt Berenice will have dispatched it before the month is out), a rug in their room (Berenice' February project), and more room to play. It's like the fairies came.

No pictures yet! Imagine pictures.

The snuggly little bed.

The new armoire-y cabinet-y things.

Inside one of the armoire-y cabinet-y things. (Green bins here and above all repurposed!)

Goin' Down With Me

Fans, all is quiet this early Tuesday morning, for which we are grateful as last night and yesterday morning was decidedly less so. At 11:14pm, Clara let out a wail suggesting her arm was being ripped off. Julie rushed downstairs and found Clara at the rail of her crib (with both arms intact). As Julie leaned over, Clara reached up and locked her arms around Julie's neck in a vice-like grip, and then hoisted herself up--like she was doing a pull-up!--until she could place a foot on top of the rail of the crib, at which point she pushed the rest of her body up and over and on to Julie and Fans, she was not. Letting. Go. It was all very, "Mommy, if you put me back down there, I'm taking you with me, screaming. Decision time." We still really have no idea what was wrong, but we passed a restless night in the big bed with Clara. She was up, she was down. She rustled, cooed, and babbled. She spun about, kicked, and pounced. This was all after the nap-that-sort-of-wasn't yesterday afternoon. So we don't know what was up with Our Birdie, but she stayed down all night.

Another Yar Moment

As we may have reported here before, Joe is really into tacking down this whole rhyming concept. So these days, it is not uncommon for him to bust out with some pronouncement like this one from Friday evening, in the car, on the way home: "You know car? And gar? They rhyme!" About fifty percent of the time, the rhyming word is not a real word. About five percent of the time, it's the same word (e.g. "You know car? And car? They rhyme!"), so we've got about a forty-five percent success rate right now. After Julie shot gar down, Joe tried again and this is what he said, "You know car? And yar? They rhyme!"

Oh, Fans. Those of you who have been with us for sometime will no doubt--no doubt--recall that Julie is extremely fond of this word, and all nautical terminology despite the fact that she was born and raised pretty much in the landlocked portion of the United States. And so, while no doubt--no doubt--Our Hero really had no idea that yar was a real word, Julie managed not to drive off the road as she excitedly turned around to tell Joe that "Yes! Car and yar did indeed rhyme!"

A New Year's Nap

Our Hero decided to kick off the new year by taking an afternoon snoozer! He took a bad tumble in the morning and so sort of felt like tucking his little self in to his "snuggly little bed."* Naturally, Clara woke up crying in the midst of her siesta. Julie bolted in, scooped her up, and bolted back out just as Joe started to stir. So it was that Clara finished her nap on top of Julie. Birdie is getting rather big so it makes Julie's breathing a little shallow, and Julie is, of course, utterly pinned and down for the count. So if one had, say, been reading on the couch and thinking about popping up for a little bowl of potato chips and a fizzy beverage when the Birdie began to wail, well, c'est la vie. But, every time it happens that Clara ends up napping on top of Julie, Julie thinks it may be the last time, and so hopes it is not. So it's not such a bad vie, even if it is temporarily sans potato chips.

Shortly after Ted took this picture, Clara Jane herself popped up all, "Hello, World!" and wanted some books of her own to read. Ted snagged the three that were on the nightstand: The Itsy Bitsy Spider; The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear [Could the authors seriously not have shortened that up a bit? Where was the editor on that one?]; and Where's Spot? Clara deemed Where's Spot? the only tome worthy of her attention, and instructed Ted to read it twice. Quite charmingly, the second time through, upon reaching the flap hiding the aligator under the bed, she oriented herself just as we were before copying our "SNAP!" (as in an alligator goes SNAP!) motions.

*This "snuggly little bed" is new. Julie is always off the week between Christmas and New Year's Day, and this year, Ted took it off as well. We had grand plans to linger at the Starfoxes each morning, go to the movies, take in an exhibit at the Minnesota History Center, read, and do a little reorganizing around the house. Tuesday, we set off bright and early for IKEA to get some new and improved toy storage, and while we were there, decided the root of the toy storage problem in the bambini's room was that their room is too small for two twin beds (or one twin bed and a crib). As a new, smaller bed is cheaper than a new house, we got new "snuggly little bed[s]" of which we will be reporting soon in a grand Home Improvement Reveal post.

A New Year (Let the Adventures Begin!)

And here we are, Fans: on the flip! Happy new year! The early part of the New Year's Eve found Joe in a pair of the Justice League underwear Santa left in his stocking, "measuring the steps." (The measure "four fifty-six." Rather markedly like a clock time measurement. Must be a magical tape measure.)

A little later--when things were really getting crazy (read: right before bath--we believe we've mentioned what an absolute gas this portion of the day is before), Joe was roaming about in the buck and decided to do a little baking.

What was Our Birdie doing while all this measuring and baking was going on? Birdie was engaged in her new favorite activity: tearing up the junk drawer by the refrigerator (the same drawer with which Joe was also inordinately fascinated when he was the same age). So many delights reside in this drawer!: tape; stickers (LOTS of stickers); pens, pencils, and highlighters (she is especially fond of the highlighters); scratch pads and paper; three unsharpened Halloween themed pencils; one or two measuring tapes; a flashlight; gum; a small black object resembling a top hat for a mouse (or so it was once describe when Joe asked what it was); and probably some other things the bambini can't reach owing to the fact that their arms are short and this drawer cannot be opened all the way. Such are the thrills of life in an older home, and with the bambini. Here's to more adventures in 2012!