Status Report: Boo

Took Boo to her one-year checkup Wednesday, and all systems appear to be go. 19 lbs, 10 oz and 29 inches tall. She can officially graduate from formula to milk now, and we can start trying her out on stuff like peanut butter. Brains and brawn seem to be in working order, and in fact the doctor remarked on her fine motor control when she saw her working her Cheerio dispenser.

One thing we discussed was whether or not it was time to wean her from her nighttime bottle. She eats solid food all day, and doesn't get a bottle until bedtime, but we've been holding off weaning her from that because we knew we'd be moving, and that's not the time to take away a big piece of bedtime ritual. The doctor totally agreed, and said to keep giving her formula in the bottle, not milk, and just wean her of both at the same time.

The only downer was that we also had to schedule her follow-up VCUG.

( Icky Medical Details Cut )

The test is scheduled Wednesday week at Vanderbilt, which is another reason I really, really like living in Nashville. Until I had Boo, I hadn't fully appreciated the advantage of having a kick-ass pediatric hospital right here in town. Boo's had to be admitted twice, once for light therapy right after birth, and again with the UTI a month later, and both times I was so glad to be at Vandy. The staff there are wonderful, and they bend over backwards to make things as easy as possible for the kids and the parents.

Boo's actually staying with Grandma right now while Mama does some packing, which is the only reason I have time to be lounging with my computer at 7:45 in the morning. More spam about the house and packing to follow. :)

In other news...Mold!

A belated report on the house inspection.

( On mold, moisture, and why building decks under the influence of alcohol is a bad idea )

To sum up, the inspector said that the house "needs some love." It's a well-built house, structurally sound, but in his opinion some of the previous owners didn't maintain things that they should have. This wasn't exactly a surprise to me, and I think he was relieved that I didn't seem to expect a perfect report. Considering what we bid for it, it'd be a bit unrealistic, after all, for us to expect a perfect house. So, no worries there. :)

We're getting some contractors in for estimates this afternoon, so hopefully we'll at least have a ballpark figure today. Because of the unorthodox nature of our supplementary loan, we need to close early next week, so if we're going to bail we need to know soon. So long as the news isn't completely out of our budget, though, we should be okay. Here's hoping.

Singing the Packing Song

Last spam of the morning, promise. I gotta get to work packing!

As an aside to all this house business, I can't believe that I've apparently not mentioned that one of my closest friends is gearing up to close on a house not a mile away from this one. It was one of those strokes of amazing good fortune, and I can't believe that I've not talked about it. Well, probably I was afraid of jinxing the deal, and I hope I haven't done it now. :) Anyway, when Jamie (not to be confused with my sister Jami) and I both realized that we were going to be house-hunting at the same time, we decided to join forces and see if we couldn't manage to live in the same area of town. I went with her the day she looked at the house she ended up bidding for, and I knew that the house I was looking at was in the same general area, but we'd driven around so much that day that it wasn't until I compared the addresses on Mapquest that I realized that we were a mile apart as the crow flies. I'm wondering if that's close enough to qualify for Trading Spaces....

Anyway, Jamie (again, not my sister) and her husband are planning to close around the same time as we are (she actually won the bid on her house the day after ours was accepted by HUD), but whereas we're not planning to move until mid-December, she's going to move that weekend. Needless to say, there's a certain packing frenzy going on in our households. One nice thing is that Albert is able to get good-quality used boxes from work, to the tune of about 30 to 50 per day. Even with all the books, and with both our households moving, I think we'll be okay on the box front, which is often the worst hassle of trying to move.

I have to say that this packing experience isn't nearly as arduous as I remember the last one being. Last time we moved, we threw out what I estimated at the time to be--no kidding--about a dumpster's worth of papers and other miscellaneous crap. So far, I've only disposed of five or six boxes of stuff, and I've already gone through most of the high-crap areas like my desk and the filing cabinet.

I did finally throw away all my bank statements of the last fifteen years, along with my cancelled checks and ATM receipts. I did keep my pay stubs from the early 90s, since the Social Security Administration is under the impression that I didn't earn any money in 1990 and I'd like to have proof to get that worked out, but the rest went bye-bye. Gosh, I hope I don't need that stuff one day.

One thing I found was the receipt for the movers I hired when I moved from Murfreesboro to Nashville some 13 years ago. They charged me $250, and after hauling my books up three flights of stairs in August, the movers politely asked me not to call their company the next time I moved. :)