Communicating

Jacob doesn't have any words right now. And that's ok-were not worried about it. He is a younger sibling and everyone we talk to says it is typical for younger siblings to take longer to talk, since the older sibling often does the talking, meaning that the younger sibling gets what he wants or gets his point across without necessarily having to say words. Also, Jacob is a boy, and everyone we talk to says that boys typically talk later than girls, and we always have to remind ourselves that Sophia talked very early.

Even with all of that, though, we are kind of looking forward to the day when Jacob will start to use some words. Yes, we know that that means he will likely be talking nonstop after that, but right now he clearly has unexpressed wants and needs and it would be so much easier if he would just say something. His favorite form of communication at this point is the "point and grunt" which works for him most of the time but we often don't know exactly what he is pointing at or what he wants with it.

So all of this is to say that I was pleasantly surprised when Jacob today made a little progress in the communication area. No words, of course, but evidence that he is trying harder to make his point known. We were playing the playroom and he was doing his own thing, and he comes to me and says "juh" (mostly just the "j" sound) and holds up this card that you see at the top of this post. I say to him "do you want some juice?) and he does that half-nod, half-shake thing that means yes. So we go and get some juice. Communicating with flashcards is an acceptable form of communication, right?

Oh and that nod/shake thing? That's progress too. He used to shake his head (looking like he is saying no) when he wants to say yes. Very confusing. Point-grunt; "oh, do you want this?"; shakes head (but meaning yes); "no? ok, what do you want then?"... Very frustrating for everyone involved.

Sold

We're moving!





Not out of the city or anything, but we are moving to a bigger house. This has been something that has been in the works since January, which is one of the reasons we have been very very very behind in our blogging. For anyone who has bought and sold a house, of course, you can understand. While our house was on the market, we needed to keep it very clean at all times because people would show up out of the blue wanting a showing. And of course we didn't want to turn anyone away for a showing because every showing is, just maybe, the person who will buy the place.

Lets back up a bit, though, and start from the beginning.

It really all started back in december when I was jogging around the neighbourhood. I happened jog past a house that was for sale, and it was right across the road from a really nice park. On a whim, we looked at the MLS listing and thought that it looked very good. After christmas, we were still thinking about the place and decided to call up our real estate agent, who of course was happy to hear from us. By the way, anyone in regina looking for a real estate agent, Patricia Moon is absolutely phenomenal.

So Patricia shows us the house, we look around and are transfixed. We realized that our current house was not really perfect in terms of space usage and layout, especially with two disaster-generating children. The problem, we realized, was that the dining room in our current house is in the kitchen, which means that guests see the dirty dishes while we are eating dinner. Also, the living room is in the kitchen, which means that as soon as a kid takes out a toy, the kitchen and dining room are also messy. so we totally get the open concept thing, and we know that it works for lots of people, but we had to learn the hard way that it doesn't really work for us.

So looking through "the philip road house" as it has come to be known, we decided what the heck, mortgage rates are essentially zero, lets go for it! When we went home, we started to look at what it would take to get our house on the market.

The first step was to replace the flooring in the great room, because a leaky dishwasher had done some damage. We talked to the insurance company and had an estimate taken, and decided to use insurance. The insurance guy, Chris, was great. He came in, took measurements, and showed us what would have to be replaced. Not knowing anyone in town who replaces floors, we decided initially to go with one of the suggested installers that the insurance guy has used in the past. They couldn't find the original material so they made a quote with some new stuff which would have been fine. Then, I decided to look in the place I bought the floor in the first place, and they had mostly the same thing, just a slightly different colour. So we decided to go with this material and asked the installers to adjust the quote.

Well, here's where it gets messy. The installers brought back a ridiculous quote that didn't change by nearly the cost of the material, and the insurance agent couldn't accept it. So long story short, we had to find a new installer, right when the renovation tax credit was coming to an end and everyone was busy. Best we could do was a month later, and it was already a month and a half after we wanted to sell. The good news in all of this was that we found a really nice contractor that we plan to use from now on. The bad news is that the Philip road house, by this time, was purchased by someone else. The house that started it all disappeared from our sight.

But that did take the pressure off of selling the place, which is just as well because it took a good two months to finally sell our house. We had probably 40 showings, and many real estate agents brought clients again and again. And while this was happening, we looked at MLS looking at the houses we might like to buy, but never getting really excited about a house since it may sell before we were in a position to buy. Buying before we sold wasn't really an option.

So finally, a couple weeks ago, after lowering the price a few times to follow the market, we did sell the house. Next step was to spend a frantic week or two looking for the house we wanted to buy. Requirements piled up as we saw house after house, but we ended up with a great little two-story split not far from where we are now. Separate dining room, eating area in the kitchen, an office for both Tricia and myself, a bathroom on the same floor as the guest room, a beautiful and professionally done basement, and walking distance to the park and the school. We think we did pretty well. There are a few things we were looking at that aren't in this new place, but we have everything we need, especially a big big kitchen.

Moving day is the 26th of July to the 30th of July - we have both houses for a few days. So now the next phase begins - cleaning up, sorting, throwing away and packing. We have already sent a significant chunk of our possessions into storage in a pup unit. We thought it would only be in there for a couple months at most, I think it's been four months now. But it served its purpose, and we can just get the pup delivered to the new house and start unloading!

More details as they arrive.

Anatomy lesson

Jacob is getting better at understanding words...