So Young Now...

Well, since it has been a few weeks, I suppose I should have a few weeks worth of fun things to talk about, but that's not the case! Lucky for those who are reading this now.

Nicole is starting school in the fall, a little preschool program, 4 hours a week, just to get her immersed in a little preschool culture. Max will miss her, and I am sad that my little girl is growing up. But I know she will love it. We may also sign her, and Max, up for pee wee soccer classes, and she is so excited, because she sees Dora (the Explorer!) play soccer on video.

Kurt and I went out as adults last weekend. We planned on a nice dinner out, with hopes of a movie, or drinks, or adult conversation well into the night. Predictably, while we did end up at dinner, we were ready for sleep shortly thereafter, and we had little motivation to continue our dreams of the fun evening like we used to share before kids came into the picture. My mom wanted to watch the kids at her house, so we were not awakened at the crack of dawn by the little monsters, but I was up that early anyway, thinking I was hearing the little monsters. The kids survived the day at Grandma's and Grandma even enjoyed it as well. Well, except for the very early rising time -- the kids just can't kick the habit!

Nicole ended up staying two nights with Grandma. She did not want to come home when we went to pick them up. Ingrate! Grandma was happy to have her, so we took Max home to be the king of the house. He did not like it at first and kept asking for Nicole, until he realized that he actually had free reign of the toys. He never knew that things don't fly out of your hands constantly when there is no sibling in the house. By the time we got Nicole home, Max was not so happy to have his sister back, and she was not so happy that he played with ALL the toys alone for 24 hours or so. There have been better reunions.

What else is new on the homefront? Oh this is fun. We had a leak in the basement some time ago, and our builder came to do some water tests because they determined that it may be coming from the sliding door above the area in the basement, and maybe from the master bedroom above that (and that would explain the musty smell every time it rains!!) So, the men came out a few days ago to do their water tests, BUT before they could even do that, they looked at the windows in the bedroom and realized that the alarm company installed the sensors to the window pane, drilling holes down into the windows, and not sealing them, so that all the upstairs windows had leaks in them. They guys were a little perplexed, but they usualy do not see sensors upstairs so they figured that maybe instead of sensors on the side of the windows they had to drill down. (They still should have sealed it somehow). On a lark, they checked the windows on the first floor as well, and what do you know, the alarm company did the same thing to all of these windows! They guys had not seen this before--ever-- and, most of the development was required to use the same alarm company. So, we are the ONLY house in the development that has holes drilled through our windowsills, and leaks in every single window in our house. They did not know quite what to tell me at that point, except that they would talk to their supervisor and the alarm company, and that I should hope it did not rain. As a cruel joke, the rain started coming down about 3 minutes after they walked out the door. And did not stop for a few days. But the good news is that there were numerous meetings among builders, window guys and alarm company, and that they will take care of it. No, I don't know when, and no I did not yet get a satisfactory answer for the one million questions I had. BUT, I received an honest answer that the guy that did it was (is) a good employee of the alarm company, but did not realize the type of windows he was dealing with. (I really held back from asking about whether he had installed ANY alarms in ANY of the houses in this development, or ANY development by this builder, of which there are several, as all the windows are the same. And if so, HOW could he get this wrong. I did not ask whether he was a good employee who had EVER installed an alarm system before, or whether he was a good employee at his usual job of sweeping the floors, but was called in last minute for this job. So many questions. )

The Live 8 Concert in Philly (and in the rest of the world) was today, and we did not get in to see it. I lived smack in the middle of the city for over 10 years, and nothing exciting went on. And then I move out and Bob Geldorf finally sees fit to host another concert shortly thereafter, making history in the process, and I am living in the suburbs and unable to come in for it. So I sat at home bitterly watching television, and noting how much better the London concert seemed than the Philly concert.