It turns out that Jill’s job won’t exactly transfer.

Her company will let her transfer as an “intermittent” employee, meaning that she’ll be guaranteed 20 hours per week, with the possibility of more, and no benefits and no more company car. No one seems to know what the hourly wage for an intermittent employee is. Also, just to make it extra complicated, there is a decent chance but no certainty, that a full-time position will open up in Milwaukee in the first half of next year.
So we need to figure out the cost of COBRA on her plan vs my plan. And we need to figure out how much rent we can afford. We need to make plans to sell her cool car and find her new day to day wheels, but probably not buying because she might get the company car again.

There is a way in which it’s sort of perfect, except for the car thing. Working half time on a flexible schedule gives you a base income and plenty of time to look for a job. If I found an awesome job, it would give us great childcare flexibility.

(Of course, that would also mean that I will truly never be able to be alone again, which I view as a major downside. I realized this week that I have not actually been alone in the house since June. The closest I get is when Josie is asleep and Jill is picking Noah up from day care. Or when I lock the door to take a shower. If I don’t lock the door, there’s about a 1/4 chance that Noah will wander upstairs and find me. I believe that I will get to be alone on Monday morning.)

 

I read a very funny description of newborns this morning, in a handout at the new moms group I’ve been attending. It described them as a “sleeping, pooping, lump of protoplasm.”

Yup. That’s about right.

But this week, a baby has started to emerge. She smiles, occasionally “laughs” and looks around far more than she did before. Plus she’s starting to be awake for semi-predictable amounts of time.

It rocks.

In other news, the due diligence period on our house sale contract has expired, so we are officially under contract and anticipate selling this house in less than a month and moving out in approximately 6 weeks.

Yes, we are out of our ever-loving minds, thank you very much for asking. Josie and I go to Milwaukee next week to look for an apartment. Do you think that I’ll be able to blog more regularly if Grandma is playing with the baby?

Ok, she’s done with looking around independently. Time to pick her up for a snuggle and maybe some dinner.

 

 

Dear Noah,

Friday you turned two years and eight months old.

This month has been a trying one for you. We had to get our house ready to sell, and that means keeping it very neat and clean all the time. It also means putting a LOT of toys away in the garage or in closets where they aren’t easily available for playing.

This coincided with our discovering that when you are being naughty, one of the few ways we can get you to do what needs to be done — brush your teeth, take sharp objects out of your mouth, yelling at one of your mommies — is to take away a toy.

When we told you that your airplane was in the closet, you announced that you wanted to say that you were sorry to This Mommy. Our hearts broke. We now try to explain that the toys are only away to be clean, and that we can get them out and play, rather than just telling you that a toy has been put away.

That’s not to say that you’ve been an angel this month. You’ve actually been more angry and defiant than ever before. Part of it is probably being 2.5, and part of it is probably having to share our attention with Josie, and part of it is probably our getting ready to move.

The funniest thing you’ve done this week is refuse to wear pants that actually fit you. You insist that your 3T pants are too big and are really my pants. But your old pants land more than an inch above your ankles.

The second funniest thing is watching you and This Mommy sing 80s pop music together. You love to sing and listen to us sing, and you especially love to play instruments. Hardly a day goes by without you playing at least 3, maybe as many as you can find or invent. Your favorites seem to be the toy guitar, xylophone, and harmonicas.

The sweetest thing is to watch you with Josie. You coo at her in a soft voice, and firmly explain to your mommies what Baby Josie wants — her mermaid doll, to watch Rocket on TV, the parent who is unavailable…. You are a great Big Brother, and you are very proud of that fact.

We will continue trying to make this move as easy on you as possible, but I suspect that the next couple of letters will reflect it being hard on all of us.

Try to remember that we love you very, very, very much.

love,

That Mommy

 

Ok, I can blog about 2 big news items:

First, we are under contract to sell our house! Not for as much as we hoped, but under the circumstances and given the extreme chaos of the current market, we’ll take it. We close the first week of November, and move the week of Thanksgiving. Milwaukee, here we come!

And, we have a hearing date for Josie’s adoption. Not until later in December, naturally. So we’ll be returning for a visit just a few weeks after we leave.

 

It has been a very exciting last couple of days.

Unfortunately, blogging about the excitement is a hair premature. Let me just say that I have a couple of threads of cautious optimism brewing right now, and I look forward to blogging about them if and when they either crystalize or crumble. Hopefully later this week.

One lovely bloggable thing that happened today is that we went over to our wonderful neighbors’ house, Emily & Katherine, and hung out having a beer on their deck this evening. Their daughter and Noah played happily in the back yard, Josie slept in a sling, and their enormous and adorable 6 month old bounced, swung, and eventually melted down.

It was one of the most relaxing and fun, if short, evenings we’ve had in awhile.

 

I can’t decide which member of our family is having the hardest time dealing with the whole house-showing business. Except that it probably isn’t Josie.

On the one hand, Jill is stuck doing most of the cleaning and organizing work. Every day before work or before we leave the house, she cleans off all the clutter from the bathrooms and the kitchen, tidies Noah’s room, and makes sure that our room and Josie’s room are clutter free too. And she vacuums.

On the other hand, I am having to spend insane amounts of time outside of the house with a nursing 5 week old. That means we have to find places to go that are comfortable, family-friendly, nursing-friendly, and not insanely expensive. Not exactly relaxing either.

But really, it may be Noah. His toys keep disappearing, even when he hasn’t done anything naughty to justify them being taken away. And his formerly eastgoing mommies wig out when he spills food and dumps pikes of toys.

 

Our house has been shown 4 times since Wednesday. It gets shown again tomorrow morning. Then we have the open house tomorrow afternoon. We clean it every morning, run off when the phone rings, and have a sad little boy who wonders where his toys are.

Josie is a big 10 pounder, cute as a button. Noah is a bundle of energy, bouncing wildly everywhere.

And his mommies are tired. T.I.R.E.D.

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