Cold Spaghetti

So, the stuff to Best Dressed Child went back. Nervous about Amy’s wedding being a month away, I started to look again online. After missing a few items of interest on ebay (I’m not very good at remembering times and don’t like that I can’t tell how worn an item is…) I went back to look at online stores… ready to pay out just to have something in time.

And then hit gold!

I found Children’s Cottage — a little children’s store currently having a sale (in honor of the election of the new pope, of all things.) Even better, they are located in Mobile, Alabama — a short drive away from my parents’ house. So, I made an order online to reserve some outfits (they only had a few sizes left in many items) and my Mom called this morning. My Mom, being the most personable and friendly person on the planet, instantly became buddies with the owner, who is holding all the outfits for Mom to inspect and pick up later this week (saving us shipping). So, finally — we got great stuff, on sale, in stock, didn’t pay shipping, and local to Granna, who now has a friendly relationship with the owner.

So far, looking like a great ending!

Will has taken a shine to wearing his Pooh hat backwards.

Little man, back from a walk (i.e.: playing “around”) with Dad!

Paul emailed work Wednesday morning to say that he was going to be out for a few hours that morning because:

1. He was ill
2. The truck was stolen (so we thought at that point)
3. TiVo died.

Many deeply heartfelt email condolenses arrived quickly from Paul’s co-workers. They lamented the (temporary) loss of TiVo, and commented how horrible it was to be sick, but to be sick without TiVo was incredibly tragic.

No one mentioned the car.

Wednesday morning.

5:00am. Paul is sick.
6:30am. TiVo died.
7:30am. We find that our 1995 Purple Ford Explorer (“Barney”) was stolen.
8:00am. Paul alerts work to a sick day due to his illness, TiVo’s death, and Barney’s capture.
8:30am. We amend the stolen report after I call the city towing company and find Barney.

What happened? We blocked off a large street area in front of the house to allow for the DuctBusters trucks. Paul moved them extra early Tuesday morning and did so somewhat hastely since he had to move both cars quickly so that the large DuctBuster trucks could get into the space. The street was very crowded with the dumpsters and equipment from the construction going on right now, so he had to park a little further down the street, where we don’t know the neighbors as well. He must have moved the truck somewhere that pissed someone off. We found out from the towing company that it was called in by a neighbor…! (Even the towing company thought it was totally ridiculous.)

The lesson? Be careful not to even touch on someone’s driveway. (We were called in by a neighbor… we’ve even met them briefly and I do Yoga at the same studio as the wife.) Paul swears he couldn’t have been that close, but admits he may have made a mistake and feels badly about it. What is troublesome is that even if he was partly blocking their puny, not-well marked driveway, the fact that they didn’t even go out to the street to ask around about who’s car was there is a serious bummer. Everyone around here knows us and our cars — especially the workmen, who are all over the place these days. Paul’s gone by three times to apologize and no one has been there. (Although our other neighbors agree that they should be apologizing to us!)

Will at dinner last night. He was having a great time talking, laughing, parroting us, and eating Dad’s yummy Mexicali-stew! Both the video camera and the digital rebel came out.

Will’s favorite daily activity is “around.” This game began in Honduras during the summer of 2003 with Paul and Jonas, the then 22 month old son of my friend and colleague, Joanne Bailey. Paul spent a lot of time watching Joanne’s kids, especially Jonas, who had taken a special liking to Paul. While we worked on Joanne’s in-laws’ porch, Paul would play in the yard with Jonas, and they developed the game “around.” This involved walking (over and over again) around the outside of the house and yard, repeating the same activities each trip “around.” With Jonas and Paul, “around” involved things like picking up Jonas so that he could touch the clothesline, jumping off the concrete sill of the house at a certain corner, and counting the chickens in the trees (really, the chicken slept there.)

With Will, “around” involves a similar pattern (but unfortunately without the chickens.) The Joseph Street version of around leaves our house to the right, and going around our street block in a circle. Will points out certain things, performs specific acts in specific places, and basically explores his world each tiny detail at a time. This includes pointing to the ceramic frog in the garden of a house around the corner (“La Rana! Ribbit!”), saying “Woof, Woof” to the decorative dogs on an iron fence gate, sitting on the front steps of a particular house where he sometimes sees the owners sitting (“Hi!”), spinning in a circle on a stamped concrete driveway, pointing and getting very excited about the friendly cat and two dogs who live at the corner of Octavia and Laurel, peeking through a Will-sized hole in a fence, trying to open one gate that has a knob he can reach, “smelling” the black-eyed susans (still an exhale rather than an inhale), poking his finger in a certain hole in a patch of concrete sidewalk, straining to turn a spigot on the front of someone’s porch, and then once he’s turned the corner back onto Joseph Street, picking up two rocks, only to drop them a few steps later to pick up a stick. We do this walk three or more times a day. The neighbors are getting used to the routine to the point where they look forward to his little visits.

We can’t so much as open the front door without the risk of Will running out, full speed, to begin “around.” (Luckily, we’ve trained him to wait for us to hold his hand before going down the front steps.) He LOVES it.

Paul and Will… one year ago today!! Will was in his “no hair” phase — between loosing his birth hair and growing his baby hair. I can’t believe he was once just a little puddin’!

Best Dressed Child turned out to suck. While the outfits (for the most part) were great, the size was too big. Turns out that Will needs the 24 months, even though he’s technically long enough for 2T. The one 24-month outfit I got (the one for this summer’s weddings) came with holes in the sleeves (probably due to carelessly placed security and pricing tags). I don’t feel like I should pay full price ($52!) for a piece with holes. When I emailed them, they were crummy. So, I wrote a nice letter expressing my disappointment and am returning the entire lot. My recommendation: steer clear of them!!

Back to square one for dressy outfit shopping.

Good news: we found a great kids dressy outfit store (Concepts) in Clearview Mall in Metairie (better known as “The Target Mall” since it has a HUGE two story Target.) So, we have that option along with another online place: One of a Kind Kid. Wish us luck!

Our tax refund has quickly gotten eaten up by home improvement projects. The big ticket items:

– Custom glass fitted to the two cabinet doors we had cut out to make glass doors. (Who knew that getting plate glass was so darn expensive?) Our cabinet-maker suggested that we go to the Stained Glass Studio in Metairie — he said that this was THE place to go. We understand why! No sloppy plate glass here. They were amazing. We went Thursday afternoon with Will (toddler in a glass shop?!) and loved the place. We ended up choosing a classic Victorian design and got a quick lesson on glass, leading, design, and so much more. They even offer classes (wonder if I can make the time for the drive this summer?)

– Duct cleaning from DuctBusters. We thought the cats were tracking funny dirt on to the guest room bed. Nope. Turns out it was mold falling out of the ducts above the bed when Paul worked in the attic. DuctBusters is coming to clean out the mold, dust, grime and whatever else is growing in our 100+ year old ducts. From what we understand, they do quite an impressive job and treat the ducts to prevent any future problems. Hooray for the coming of clean air! (This is happening Monday and Tuesday.)

– Plantation Shutters for the huge front walk-through windows. This is becoming more of an issue now that the spring days are starting to heat up… the afternoon sun through the front windows is impressive. Months of debate, research, measuring, measuring, and re-measuring led us to Blinds.com — we are confident that we can install them ourselves and decided to save thousands (literally) by ordering discount direct. The quotations I got from companies over the past few months (from Home Depot to private designers) ranged from $800-1500 per window… forget it! We got these for a fraction of those prices. (The trade-off: blinds.com aren’t the most informative folks so you really have to know what you want when you order and be prepared to install it yourself.) We ordered the Hunter Douglas cafe shutters (we need two sets — a top and bottom — to cover the 108″ of window height.) Only 9 months of paper blinds and we’ll finally be graduating to real shutters!!

A VERY exciting week!