Alex's Official 2 Year Post

Oh my. Myyyyy my my. Alexander is two. TWO! Let's talk about him :)

Alex, for the most part, is a lover. If you want to pick him up, he's really happy about it. If you sit on the couch, he will either squish himself next to you or more likely, scramble right on to your lap and block your view of the TV (you allow this because his little blond haircut is so cute to look at :) ). If you are our neighbor, just barely getting to know us, he will not only hug you but he will actually RUN to you to hug you. That's just his way. He's sweet, funny and oh-so-adorable, I think because he doesn't talk. He's kind of like a dog in that way - easy to love ;) This video is classic Alex - burping and thinking it's hilarious, then fake burping and thinking that's even more hilarious, and refusing to do what I ask him to because he's far happier where he is.

(for email readers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HioxhR1Je-Y)

But as you can tell, phonetically he is kind of a mess. "No" is pretty clear, but his speech is not coming along great. Ashton at age 2 had 20-25 words and we thought that was bad. Alex consistently has about 4: "Up", "No", "Mama" and "Daddy". He can sign "all done", "more", "my turn" or "me please", "milk", "eat", and "help", but a lot of the time it's unintelligible noise. Like the other day he lost his shoe on the playground, but as I scooped him up I didn't notice, and he squawked like a little bird for a full minute before Ashton and I realized what he was trying to "say". It's a lot of stories like that. We of course have him in EI and I just pushed for the addition of a SLP because I really think he needs more help. He had his evaluation last week so that is in the works. Overall I'm hoping things will pop for him soon.

Alex doesn't let the speech really get him down though. He definitely has ways of communicating and it's easy to tell his mood/what he wants/what he doesn't want for the most part. When you're Alex and things are good, they're really good. When they're bad, the whole day is shot and you can try again tomorrow. I think I've mentioned this before about Alex: he's either super happy or super cranky with not much in between.

What else about Alex. Well he loves the junk drawer. He'll push his little chair right up to the counter, climb on and stick his face right in to all the pens, tape, stamps, paper clips, rubber bands, bottle openers, business cards and whatever else ends up in junk drawers. He is also just getting into trains, putting the tracks together and lining up the magnets to create long strings of cars to guide along. He also LOVES all the tiny pieces from Ashton's lego bin, which is very distressing for Ashton and he has taken to hiding little stashes of things so that Alex can't find them.

One time Alex managed to hide a Lego guy in his fist long enough to get it into his crib with him for his nap. I laid him down and after five minutes checked the monitor. What was he doing? I went in, he had laid the Lego guy next to him on the sheet, was patting it and trying to kiss it. One of the odder moments.

Speaking of his crib, his new trick is climbing out. Which, as most parents of toddlers can attest, is basically the end of days. Horrible. We took the whole bottom off so now his mattress is on the floor, but all he has to do is grow a couple inches and he'll be back at it. I give it another 6 months and we are toast.

Speaking of growing...here are his stats!

Height: 36", exactly 3 feet! (91st percentile)
Weight: 32 lbs even (94th percentile)
Head circumference: 48.5 cm (56th percentile)
Shots: Hepatitis A and a blood draw for lead
Shoe size: 8W
Clothes size: Old Navy 3T, and all pajamas 3T, but otherwise 2T (sometimes 3T in tops. As you can see it is not an exact science)
Teeth: All except 2 year molars and loving his spin brush
Diapers: Size 5s
Sleep: Wakeup between 7:30 - 8 am, one nap usually 2-4 pm, bedtime at 8 pm. He is a great sleeper as long as his stuffed monkey is in there with him.

His favorite foods are pretty unoriginal. If you put warm, fresh-out-of-the-pot mac n cheese (the white cheddar shells) on his plate, he will use both hands and shovel it all in his mouth until it's gone. It's really something to watch haha. He must swallow it whole. He can also house a hot dog in about 18 seconds. He eats tons of fruit, cucumbers, eggs, yogurt, pasta, etc. All the usual kid things.

Alex does a great job of being a pesky little brother and what interests him the most is whatever Ashton is doing, whatever Ashton has, or wherever Ashton is going. Needless to say, Alex has learned that to keep up, he needs to be on his scooter!

(for email readers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_gkQEnI3G0)

Right after this he fell pretty bad. He still has some scabs healing up on his chin but boy those helmets really do their jobs!!

Up until this point, I've measured Alex's age in months (pause to let the tears flow).

And now...

THIS IS TWO!!

Happy 2nd Birthday to Alex!!

Our little Mr. Alexander is TWO today! Weeeeeeee!! Also, buckets of tears. How?? When?? 

Despite this mystery of "where the time goes", it was time for a party. Grandma and Uncle Chris were visiting so we decided to go ahead and throw the shindig last night. Alex wasn't going to know the difference and it's always nice to have extra singers considering I did not plan anything official i.e. no one else was coming over.

We ended up doing presents first because it was a long rainy day and quite frankly Ashton couldn't take it anymore. Proximity to wrapped gifts is a big challenge for him ;) Overall I was pretty anxious about Alex's big day because Ashton has not been handling birthdays well. He gets very jealous, wants to know when it is going to be his turn, etc. But we asked him to help us decorate and to get Alex something special to be from just him. This turned out to be a) a board book we have read a zillion times, taken from the shelf and b) five Hotwheels cars from our big bin of toys. But that's ok! Ashton wrapped everything himself and was really proud to hand Alex these "gifts", despite that they were used and not in any way novel. Alex didn't even seem to notice.

Alex's big presents were an easel with lots of new art supplies, and a baby doll and stroller. I wanted to get him those last things for Christmas but was veto'ed by Jason. So this time I found a boy doll and a very un-pink stroller on Amazon and went for it. He LOVED it, I died every time he went to feed the baby his bottle. SO CUTE.  

Present opening generally went like this.

"Here Alex, let me help you."

"Get all the paper off! Get it!"

"IT'S A _________________!!!!!!!!!!!!"

"Alex! LOOK! IT'S A ____________________ !!!!!!!!!!!"

That was the stroller, in particular, but Ashton was actually excited about everything, and was always right there just in case Alex needed any assistance. Juuuuust in case.

The easel was great! I had suggested it to Grandma and Grandpa so I bought an Aquadoodle to use as a "canvas" in addition to the chalkboard and whiteboard it came with. That thing is AWESOME - any paint brush works in addition to the special pen, and it's just water. Even I felt like I was painting! 

Mercifully we had gotten Ashton his own gift, a new Lego set, and he kept Jason busy building that so Alex could actually play with his new toys.

After dinner, it was time to sing. I particularly love how 

1. In the middle of the song I tell Alex to look at Uncle Chris (who had the camera) - talk about wrecking it!

2. Alex is very distraught because he's dropped his fork.

3. Alex, fittingly, manages to blow the last two candles out for himself :)

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hq3f417k9eI)

 I'll be back next week to post Alex's stats and the rest of the nitty gritty, but as far as his second birthday goes, that's a wrap! He had a ball. He smiled, clapped and was sooo happy. I really think he knew it was his birthday! He kept saying "Do!" when we asked him how old he was :)

The world's newest two year old! xoxox Alex!!

Kitchen Project Introduction

I hinted at the end of my last post (actually, didn't hint, flat out said) our next big project is our kitchen. I have never been through a kitchen renovation before and while it is pretty major, it is not all-the-way major because we aren't changing the layout, taking down walls, moving plumbing, etc.

Here is our kitchen today:

It looks well enough, however the major impetus for this project started with the appliances. They are old! As far as we understand, the whole house was renovated about 10 years ago and it was turned from a cape into a colonial: the second floor was added, the whole back was bumped out, and the kitchen was redone. However, they reused the appliances - everything else was new, these were not. The theory (according to the previous owners, who I am in contact with about various things) is that the owners before them ran out of money and ended up having to sell the house, which was not their intention when they started the home's major overhaul.

When we bought the house, it was disclosed that the appliances were "fully depreciated". We thought, no big deal, we will just change them out. Welllll, not so fast. First, there is no stainless steel refrigerator that will fit in the space where the white one is (and the white one's insides are very "used", it freezes things in random spots, not to mention the low shelves are prime for curious-little-kid hands!!). We wanted a fridge on top, freezer on bottom, and would have settled for something not super fancy but there was simply nothing that would fit. 

Second, there are cracks in the granite around the cooktop. One in the back, and ones that emanate from each front corner as shown:

Hard to make out, but the whole front piece of the granite wiggles because the cracks come all the way out and all the way through the countertop.

At first we thought, let's just cut the granite, take out the cooktop and oven and get a slide-in unit. We could probably make that work. And maybe we could modify the cabinets around the refrigerator somehow to fit something more modern and suitable for our needs.

But then we thought, if we're cutting the granite, and cutting the cabinets, and the kitchen is not to our taste anyway, let's just re-do the whole thing. We're going to be in this house for awhile so if we do it now, we will get the maximum enjoyment out of it.

It's been a long road since then! We got quotes from a couple contractors and talked to a kitchen designer, but ultimately ended up at Home Depot. We knew we didn't need a full-on new design/layout, just wanted to refresh everything - new cabinets, appliances, and countertops. After several meetings with our now beloved Deirdre, who worked tirelessly with us, we have pressed "Order! Buy! Let's do this!" and are about a month out from our cabinet delivery. Eeeeeee!!

We decided on the Martha Stewart Ox Hill cabinets in Picket Fence (white). But turns out, when you have a 500 page book of all your cabinet options, it is almost paralyzing! All the different sizes, inserts, etc. kept me up at night. Like instead of a 3 drawer base should I have chosen a 2 door base with one drawer? What about the trash, where should that go? And is there any other spot for the oven besides next to the fridge??

I'm telling you, it's a lot. We moved things around a ton before ultimately having something that looks like this:

The actual software perspectives are pretty neat.

That is our final design right there. The desk area on the left is coming out and being replaced with floor to ceiling storage units for toys, games, puzzles etc. The new induction cooktop will be in the same spot as the old electric one, but we moved our wall oven/microwave combo unit over next to the fridge. We just couldn't make it work in any other spot based on our dimensions, functionality, etc. I think it will be ok. We picked the LG Viatera Quartz in Rococo for our countertops - they sold me on its indestructability...we'll see ;)

Overall look and feel for the new kitchen will be pretty classic - white and gray, which is very in right now and therefore not unique, but we are fine with playing it safe. The dining area, the kitchen, and the living room are all in one big open space so any crazy design elements I think would throw off the balance. I love Ann Sacks tile so I'm hoping to do something awesome right above the cooktop for the backsplash. Those decisions, plus the pendant lights, sink, etc. are still coming down the pike, but for now we've nailed down the big stuff. When it's time for the demo to start, believe me, you'll know ;)

Before and After: The Happiest Mudroom on Earth

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!! Current mood: doing the happy dance. Thinking about our new mudroom it makes me want to go all Carlton-like from the Fresh Prince. It is that good.

Because we have had a serious problem.

That picture is not even staged. There truly was a random glove on the floor (uh, mine), a broom, and enough shoes to form a small dam. Trying to come in from outside was really annoying. No matter how many times we tried to keep the stuff on the floor to a minimum, it just crept back. And this is what you see from our entire kitchen and family room area - it's messy and unattractive and we knew from the beginning, from the first moment this house was ours, what the solution would be.

So let me start with some geography. Our house has/had a cute little sunroom. Perhaps obvious, but:

Coming up our driveway a little further you can see the side door, which is an entrance directly into the kitchen (where the shoe pileup is). See the lovely red circle next to it? That is the window I knew would have to become a door.

So this past November, that's what happened.

Now the sunroom had two doors: one exterior and one interior - the interior one opens into the foyer.

Readers, here comes the critical point. It was now conceivable that someone could come in the new exterior door and find themselves in a proper place to take off their boots, hang up their jacket, and then enter the house. [SHOCK] & [AWE]. The mudroom is just steps to the left from what has been our usual dumping ground.

All Jason had to do was build out this nirvana. We planned for one big L-shaped bench, some lockers, and a row of hooks where the bookshelves used to be. I was obsessed with painting it a fun color (we ended up with Shagreen by Sherwin Williams) and also doing the awesome beamed ceiling that same color (but at 50%, which I detailed in my prior post). Then we needed to pick all the other stuff: the rug, the hooks, the baskets, the fabric for the bench cushions...of course this was all after Jason was done building everything. It was a big project, as it turned out, and there were a few hiccups.

1) Everything was cream. The moldings, mullions (those little wooden bars between the window panes), baseboards, all of it. We initially thought to just keep it that color but I needed that fresh, cheery bright white. I whined a lot about it and Jason was finally like "Are you cah-RAZY? Do you know how long it will take me to paint all that??" I said DUH you are not going to do it with a brush, you are going to do it with a sprayer! (Luckily Jason gets very excited about new toys tools so I played that to my advantage.) After welcoming the Graco TrueCoat Plus II 1300-PSI Electric Handheld Airless Paint Sprayer to our family, we bought stock in painters tape and had at it. The prep work took one hundred times as long as the actual painting because we covered each pane with resin paper and taped all the sides.

He had to do a couple coats but the end result is pretty flawless. No brush lines, even color application, and the room sparkles. A very good decision, that paint sprayer. So now that everything was white...

2) There was not really any heat. Actually, the room was freezing. Who wants to put on a cold jacket and icy mittens? No no no. There is a vent in the ceiling connected to our central air system but this room is on a cement slab with original windows and it just never warmed up. At first we thought about radiant heat in the floors, but I loved the hardwoods, and we eventually realized a wall-mounted electric panel heater was probably the answer. The problem was, they were all at least 24" wide and we had a close-but-no-cigar 21" between the bench and the wall. We searched and searched and I finally found this little guy (which, by the way, was so elusive because it is not sold on Amazon. I didn't think there was anything left in the world that was not sold on Amazon, but apparently, there is and this is it). So we mounted it in the corner and checked that off the list.

3) When you entered the mudroom through the new exterior door, there was no light switch. Often in winter, you come home and it's dark out. It didn't seem practical to have to pass through the mudroom and into the foyer to turn on the light! Because Jason is Jason, he found some sort of light remote kit where the original switch becomes the remote and then there is a wall mounted, faux-switch receiver, or something. We tacked this receiver to the mudroom wall just inside the door. Think of the Clapper (in fact, we probably could have installed one of those now that I think about it ha!). But this looks like a real switch without actually having any wiring behind it.

The old interior switch kind of looks like a button now.

There is a little delay in the light turning on when you hit both this one and the faux one, but honestly, who cares! So now we have the remote switch and the receiver that both turn on the same light, and both in convenient spots. Woo!

Without further ado...

Before

After

Before

After

Before

After

Before

After (hi Alex!)

Before

After

And the overall timeline of transformation.

I might be guilty of overposting at this point. But I love it - the room is so sunny and cheerful, honestly the boys love to hang out in there! They race along the benches and squeeze their little bodies into the lockers (Ashton calls his his "closet"). One last glamour shot:

There are lots of things I didn't go into detail about i.e. the front bench opens on a hinge for more storage, the light fixture is new (no thanks to the old ornate gold one), and Jason made the Six Craft board out of one of the original bookshelves by staining and sanding it down. I just love love love everything about this new space :)

Sooo, what's next? Oh! I know...it looks a little something like...

Cabinets are ordered, countertops are picked, appliances are just waiting for their delivery date...we are a month out from the demo and this will definitely be our biggest project ever!