9 weeks

Hey Dean, 'sup?

The calendar says you're nine weeks old today. I'll have to believe it since I don't have photographic evidence of your every moment; welcome to secondhand life!  And I've been busy taking pictures of other important things.  See, when you were a young lad of about  5 weeks, we up and decided to repaint every room in the house and change the floors in three-fourths of it.  Good idea, right?  You and I had nothing better to do than to sleep and sit on the couch.  We could give up sleep and couches, right?  That wouldn't cause any inconvenience.  Here, I'll show you some cool before and after stuff.

My bedroom before.  See the nice wood paneling and groovy lights?  They go great with the mint green carpet.  I wonder what's under the carpet?

Gray and black stick-on floor tiles, sweeeet!  This must have been quite the man cave back in its prime.  Then what happened?

Ta da!  Painted paneling, laminate floor, new lights.  Still a converted attic, what can you do.  This is why your father and I slept on an air mattress in the living room for three nights; totally worth it.

Your big brother Scott got new floors in his room, too.  They're slippery!  For this, he spent an afternoon napping in the basement. 

Look, a picture of you!  Sometimes you like to sleep in that little chair instead of in your hammock.  Then you wiggle in your sleep until your body is on the floor and just your head is on the chair, which makes you a little mad.  Hey, at least you have a place to sleep.  Well, except for all those mornings when I took you out in your Ergo carrier and you had to nap on my chest while I bought paint and lights and stuff.

We also did the basement.  I can't find an official Before picture...

Here's Scott, before you were born, examining his train track.  Note the carpet and wood paneling. We got that carpet the day Scott came home from the hospital, due to this fun flood.  Go ahead, check it out (but beware of my post-appendicitis pregnancy belly).  We've managed to spill many things on that carpet, leading us to think that maybe we shouldn't have carpet. Your dad spent hours putting that train track together, vowing never to take it down.  Scott used to say that when you arrived, you and he would play trains together and eat tractor gummies.  Well, the track had to go down before you got to play with it.  But look!

More painted paneling and slippery floors!  Your dad was so excited that he ate a celebratory sandwich on the new floor.  See that plug in the wall?  That kept my internet alive!

Another view, we did the whole basement.  This is where the train used to be.  I asked Dad if he took it apart carefully, he said no.  I don't know if we'll see the train again.  For this, I gave up tv and laundry for a week.  Two things about that, Dean.  One, you only poop once or twice a week, which is awesome on its own and even better when I don't have a washing machine, so thank you for being so odd. Two, we live in a time of amazing technology, such that I was able to keep up with many important television shows on my computer.  Losing my tv didn't hurt quite so much.  We even (temporarily, I'm sure) broke Scott of his Curious George addiction.

We also refinished the floor in our living room.

Here's a before, with who-knows-how-old carpet.  Look, it's also a picture of you, napping in your chair again!  Guess what was under that carpet?

Perfectly lovely wood floors with no imperfections!  We did have it refinished.  And look, a baby!

You don't appreciate the wood floors as much as we do.  But if you release any bodily fluids on them, I can clean it up easily.  Oh, by the way, for this floor Scott gave up one day's nap altogether.  That was a very very bad day for us, and I'm glad you won't remember it.  You and I gave up our beloved couch for a week, and fought with Wiki for the one remaining cushioned chair in the house.

That's all the renovation pictures.  Sidenote:  all this work was done by a nice contractor who gave us a gift certificate for lunch.  Dad and I took you out today, and there were some grandparents with their 8'month-old grandson at the restaurant.  That boy loved to look at you.  You started to scream when we got our food, and the grandma came over and took you so that we could eat.  Yep, I handed you off to a perfect stranger without a thought, hope you didn't mind.  Anyway,  we did all this work because we'll be moving across the country in a few months, and we need to sell the house.  You'll probably appreciate not growing up in a house with stairs of death; it remains to be seen whether you'll appreciate growing up in Washington as opposed to Vermont.  At least you've got your Vermonter birthright, which is very important and already makes you more entitled to live here than me.  This is, after all, the place where you can leave free crap out on your front lawn, and people will come and take it away.

This is the latest of several piles of free crap your dad has piled in front of our house.  It keeps disappearing, like magic! 

I hope you understand why you've been neglected so early in your young life.  I did take a picture of you in fancy church clothes last Sunday:

People thought you were adorable, but they kept asking if you were a boy or a girl.  You totally have boy hair!

Scott has noticed more of the changes than you, but he's had fun.  Dad hired a high school boy to help move things out to the garage so that our house would be less cluttered.  Scott thought that was the most exciting thing ever, and he had to help.  Here's his video:

By the way, Scott really likes you.  Especially when other people are around, Scott likes to claim you as his baby brother named Dean.  He gets a kick out of you looking at him.

Another Scott video - inspired by my cousin Emmy, I tried asking him some questions.

Yesterday you and Scott and I were driving home from a fun store.  Scott was angry at leaving, and kept shouting NO in the car.  I looked at you, and you were happily chewing on you knuckles through a blanket.  That was your entire goal and you were so content.  You'll never have it this good again, kid, so here's a video to remind you of the good old days.

This has been a long post, and for part of it you were playing on your mat.  Good job, Dean.  Thanks for being a trooper.

Comments

[Lwin's]

Love the video clips! Dean is adorable!

It is so funny how much Nathan and Scotty are alike-especially when answering questions. I love hearing the honest answer of "I don't know!", it's refreshing. Nathan loves to say "To Infinity and Beyond!" too. They would be such great friends if you lived here (or we lived there). :)

[Loganites]

Wow, Dean no longer looks like Matt! We also heard he now outweighs his older cousin by a pound. And it's not odd to only poop once or twice a week. Before starting solids, that's what our D-boy did.

Your new floors look great! You're brave to tackle such a big project with a newborn. Good luck on the remainder of preparations for the big move.

[Loganites]

P.S. We can't believe you simply gave away your lovely 55-gallon water barrel. We paid good money for ours!

[Emmy]

Wahoo!! I got a mention!! I'll have to tell Dagny, since she (I'm revealing a big secret, here) is the real blogger x! VERY nice videos, and very nice floors. I'm more than a teeny bit jealous, but I just keep telling myself that there is a certain charm to orange and brown river rock linoleum and grey industrial carpet. At least it hides the dirt well.

[Leighanna]

Great work.