Whew - We Have a Nanny

Simon has been worried sick that we didn't have a nanny set up for him yet. 'Mama,' he screamed, 'don't you worry about these things?' By this morning he had enough and gave me physical evidence of his concern. A lot of it. All over his face and his clothes (his pjs, not the cute red onesie he is wearing below) and his fun new play mat. So I gave him a bath by myself for the first time. He had fun and kicked/splashed around and was at least marginally cleaner at the end. Certainly wetter. Then we had a little baby massage, put him down for a nap and I got right on that nanny thing.

We made an offer to a lovely young lady named Britni who we think will be wonderful. She has lots of experience (mostly with infant twins so our single Simon should be a breeze) and is from Michigan. She has been in Chicago for a while and is finishing up her degree in writing in the evening. She loves Simon and is excited about all the things we are trying to do more naturally, like cloth diapers, making our own food and baby wearing.

Simon is finally sleeping peacefully.

PS Don't you love the socks?

August House Progress

We've been pretty busy throughout August and haven't been great about taking progress pictures.  The main work over the past few weeks has been mainly on HVAC, plumbing and electrical.  These are obviously pretty important things to have in the house but don't make for as dramatic a picture.  So to inject a little excitement into these progress pictures I tried using a new app on my iPhone that takes 360 panoramic pictures.  They're not the most clear pictures in the world since I'm still getting used to the app, but they give a pretty good view of how things are looking as of August 22.  As always, click on each one for a larger version.

Standing in the middle of the kitchen, with the center of the picture looking at the window over the kitchen sink

July House Progress Part 2 (July 14 - July 31)

Lots more constructions pictures here, including nearly-complete framing on the first floor and partially done framing on the second floor.

Standing by the front door looking all the way back to the kitchen window

July House Progress Part 1 (July 1 - July 7)

After the discouraging sight of our house basically completely gutted at the end of June, we were happy to see things really start coming together quickly in July.  It was a very tough month for construction due to the weather, which was the rainiest July in Chicago on record.  At least we weren't living there at the time, but having to deal with the aftermath of a mini-hurricane a couple of times a week for most of the month definitely slowed things down a bit.  Despite that, we were happy with the progress. We went from a house with practically no floors or walls to one with plenty of both in just a few weeks.

Standing in the first floor family room and looking out through the second floor master bedroom window.  Wait, what?

Post-Simon June House Progress (June 20 - June 29)

After Simon was born we couldn't bring him back to the house which was still so far from being liveable.  Emily and I could deal with the construction noise and dust but we didn't want to subject Simon to that.  So we ended up renting a tiny studio apartment just down the street from the house.  No longer restricted by needing to make sure that we had a place to live inside the house while it was being built, Contractor Larry took full advantage of his new freedom by basically gutting the inside of the house.  We knew all of this had to happen in order for the construction to proceed but seeing it all at once like that was pretty jarring for us.  Here we were with a brand new baby and our house looked further than ever from being complete.

Looking past the stacked chairs you can see the old back wall of the living room has been removed, leaving it open to the temp laundry room.  Off to the right you can see the initial framing for the new doorway between the future dining room and the future family room

Pre-Simon June House Progress (June 1 - June 14)

For the first two weeks of June we continued living in the house while the construction continued and more and more of our house became unusable.  By the time we headed to the hospital on the 14th for the beginning of labor we were pretty much reduced to just our bedroom and the bathroom.

On June 8 they built out the frame for a big window in the temp kitchen (which will eventually be a small family room off of the kitchen)

Play time!

Simon loves his play mat. I don't know if he realizes that it is his hands that make the hanging toys move, but he sure likes it when they do! He isn't much of a fan of tummy time on the mat yet. Though he definitely has the crawling motions down he isn't quite strong enough to support his weight for long and he doesn't have the know-how to spread his hands to distribute the weight.