So Young Now...

Well, the weekend was fun in the Dungan household. We took the kids to see, and go for a ride on, Thomas the Tank. Well worth the $16 per ticket? Well, for the kids I think it was, and isn't that what it is all about these days? I don't recognize my life since I had kids and stopped working!

We did go to an adult/kid party and met some very nice neighbors in our new development. We were beginnng to wonder whether any nice ones existed, but apparently they have been there in "Phase I" all along. The kids had a blast too, and we had to drag my 2-year old Nicole screaming and naked (we can't figure out why she stripped down in the sandbox, perhaps her creativity was being hampered by clothing. We are hoping she won't grow up to be "that girl" who ends up with her clothes off at the end of every party!), out of the fun and back to the reality of bath and bedtime rituals at home.

I was just interrupted in my writing by men here to do work on the windows. The joys of living in a new construction home. During a rainstorm one evening, water was pouring through the windows into my living room. Thank goodness we are too overspent to have any furniture or window treatments in there yet---nothing to damage inside! Apparently there have been problems with the windows all over the development. (Can't they do something to prevent these problems to the later-built houses in Phase II since they know what's coming, as Phase I has been in for a year or more now!!) The wonderful things you learn from the contractors who are not employed directly by the builders.

We had our first barbecue of the season yesterday. We moved out of our beloved city and lives into the suburbs so the kids could enjoy the experience of parks, green grass, cookouts, fresh air... meanwhile we think Nicole has developed allergies, Max is afraid to walk on grass, and we learned yesterday that both kids hate grilled food. And of course, the discovery of graffiti on the side of the house the other morning, that makes me feel so great about the suburbs. I wrote "discovery" as if we had to go looking for it carefully. It was 2 feet high and spanning the entire length of the side of the house, in bright red spray paint. (No curse words, no slurs, and according to the police, it was a random act by kids, so I suppose we should feel lucky.) 400 dollars later (of course our homeowners deductible is a lot higher than that) we are not feeling so lucky about moving to this new wonderful suburban development. Our lovely little house in Philly never had anything like that. Every cloud does have a silver lining though... the entire neighborhood was an "outpouring of support" as people were stopping by to empathize, we met so many people we probably would not otherwise have met. A lovely family who were complete strangers stopped by with huge pots of flowers (7 huge pots of flowers!) because they felt badly that this happened to us. There is good out there, and we are lucky to have found that.

We are right now in the middle of the daily nap fight. Apparently at 2 1/2 Nicole feels she no longer needs a nap. We feel a little differently, and so every day we go through negotiations, bribery, crying, whining (sometimes even Nicole does the crying and whining) and escalating anger before the day is out. And some days she naps and some days she does not. And EVERY day I am exhausted from it.