And Baby Makes 3

A pretty good month for Ruby. She learned to babble and stick out her tongue. Looks like a Thighmaster "Before" picture too as she fattens up. She's wearing 6-9 months clothes now.

Upstaged

I promise real pictures of the new house once we close and get moved in. Let me get past the inherent panic one feels over a big purchase, then maybe I can write about it. One thing I can write about and is oddly fun is the process of getting my house ready to sell. Each of you pause and look around your house. Look at it as a potential buyer instead of a homeowner. It is bizarre. If I look at my house normally, I see the day to day work I need to do. Wipe the floor, dust the shelves, put away dishes. If I look at it as a buyer, I see worn door nobs, scratched kitchen cabinets... a whole new array of work. Argh!

As we get ready to put our house on the market, our realtor advises us to "stage" the house if possible.

Here is a nice definition of staging a house.

Home staging (British English: House doctoring) is the act of preparing a private residence prior to going up for sale in the real estate marketplace. The goal of staging is to sell a home quickly, and for the most money possible by attracting the most amount of potential buyers. Staging focuses on improving a property to make it appeal to the largest amount of buyers by transforming it into a welcoming, appealing, and attractive product for sale. Staging often raises the value of a property by way of reducing the home's flaws, depersonalizing, decluttering, cleaning, improving condition items, and landscaping. For vacant homes, rental furniture is used to create a living space the buyer could "see" themselves in. Properly executed staging leads the eye to attractive features while minimizing flaws.

In reality, staging is the process of making a home look like that guy from 'Sleeping with the Enemy' lives there. Why this makes a house more appealing, I cannot say. Do potential buyers see an unfurnished house and find it unbelievable that furniture could go there? Or do they perhaps wallow in confusion over what the purpose of a room is?

Potential Buyer: Honey I just don't know about this house.
Buyer wife: I agree. Our couch would never fit in this room with the sinks and the toilet. How could we possibly live here?

I think the only argument that holds water is if someone is that OCD about every little thing, they must have taken excellent care of the house. The interesting line to walk is leaving enough stuff that it actually looks like someone is living there. Well, regardless, its a tough market and if having a few pieces of furniture around help sell it, great. Jamey and I can live with a bed and a couch for awhile. We will be moving Ruby's furniture. I haven't decided what to do with that room yet that would be believable and wouldn't require me purchasing anything.

Potential Buyer: Look at this room! Let's get this house.
Buyer wife: I agree. I've always wanted my very own Tupperware Display room!

Hoody Towel of August - late again!

I DID take this picture in August, but am just now able to make a post. We have an offer out on a house (more on that later) and if it goes through, I will probably not have many posts this month. However, I hate to leave my adoring fans with no odd baby photos, so here is Ruby pretending to be a frog.



In other news, her daycare has a curriculum each week. This week is learning about ducks. I sure hope next week is something more useful like learning to sleep through the night. Ruby has regressed and my sanity has suffered!

My Crib is Rockin'

Ruby had her first cold! Daddy stayed home with her and decided she needed a hat for her fever. When I came home at lunch, I took a picture of my gangsta baby.

Next Month, Calculus!

This month Ruby learned to smile, laugh, move her hand to her mouth and bat at items. She slept through the night more often than not.

An interesting fact, at this point, babies have no concept of object permanence. If you hide an object under a blanket, they won't look for it because, once out of view, it ceases to exist. Having said that, Ruby cares not at all when I cease to exist after dropping her off at daycare.

Its Whats for Dinner

I wondered why Bumbo was talked about by all the recent parents we met until Ruby started using it. We put her in it probably too soon, but she didn't mind. Since Ruby is not a fan of swings, it was hard to find something for her to do while we eat dinner. We stuck her in the Bumbo and she loved it, therefore earning us dinnertime peace. There isn't really anything for her to do in it, so I'm not sure I understand its appeal. Still, I'm not going to argue its success.


After Ruby outgrows it, what can we use it for?

A realtor, a mother-in-law and tree rat

A realtor, a mother-in-law and a almost dead baby squirrel... Unfortunately, that's not the start of a joke, it was my Monday this week. I decided to invite my realtor over to look at my house. I want to sell it next year or so. I decided I would get her opinions on what improvements I need to make so I can start working on them. Ruby was hungry Sunday night, so I winded up getting up several times to feed her. I was so tired Monday morning, I decided I only needed 30 minutes to straiten up the house before she showed up at 10:00.

Once I dragged my lazy self out of bed and got Ruby fed, I placed her on her tummy time mat and started straitening the house. Picasso had been doing something annoying which I can't remember so I locked him outside. Suddenly, I heard what sounded like a fire engine on my back porch. I opened the door and looked around for what was making the noise. Picasso ran in and I concluded it must have been him, but couldn't figure out why he had made such a crazy sound. As I put away some stuff downstairs I let out an undignified girly scream. A hairless baby squirrel was in the middle of my living room carpet. I'm no real estate expert but I can't imagine that is a plus when showing a house. I examined the squirrel and determined that Picasso's teeth marks were not life threatening but the squirrel must have fallen from the tree because it looked like it might have a broken leg and other injuries. Deciding that the mother squirrel is a much better squirrel doctor than myself, I picked up the creature with a plastic bag and started to take it outside when I heard Ruby screaming.

Running to the nursery holding a probably germ ridden baby squirrel, I noticed she had learned a new trick of scooting backward and had managed to wedge her head on a pillow she had been propped on. I immediately adopted a new parenting philosophy "If they cryin' they ain't dyin'" and continued on my way to take the baby squirrel outside. I placed it under a likely tree and ran inside to get Ruby and wash my hands (in opposite order). I grabbed Ruby and she immediately quit crying (that girl doesn't know how to hold a grudge) allowing me to hear the doorbell. Crap crap crap. The realtor is here and my house is a cluttered mess. Oh well, a bra on a dresser and some boardgames on the floor don't change a house price and perhaps improve it in some markets.

Realtor took my flustered appearance in stride as I babbled about a scary baby squirrel and not suffocating baby. She had very little we have to change. She advised painting our cabinets so they won't be white and painting our shower so it won't be gold. Interesting.

As we were taking the tour, I hear the air conditioner quit working. 'sigh' In this heat (for those of you not in Bham, it's been over 100 degrees for a week now) the circuit trips occasionally. I try to tell realtor what I want in the next house while also thinking about the poor baby squirrel I need to check on and that I need to reset the air conditioner. While starting my kitchen requirements (very important I might add), there is a knock on the door. My mother-in-law is here unannounced (again) towing my 2 year old niece who has been promised she can hold baby Ruby. Since Ruby is asleep in the crib at this point I try nicely and not so nicely to kick them out, but they promise to stay out of the way and go to look at Ruby. My realtor leaves me to my company so I don't get to finish my bratty house list. Drat!

I am not as nice as my realtor so I ignore my company and go check on the squirrel. The mama squirrel is at the base of the tree and runs back up. The baby squirrel is still there. I had left the baby squirrel on the plastic bag to keep it from ants. Maybe that frightened her or maybe she decided it s a goner. I take it off the plastic bag and leave it on some bark. I'll check on it after I kick out the visitors and restart the AC.

One restarted AC and kicked out visitors later, I hop on instant messager and bemoan the baby squirrel's plight to my friend that we will call "Scary Mad Scientist (SMS)". Unfortunately, I didn't save the conversation but here is a gist.

SMS: Does it help if you think of it as a tree rat?
me: uh, no.
SMS: Well, it took me awhile to get used to killing them when I started this job.

Ah, yes! I forget SMS is a monster who experiments on rats for very little money! Awesome!

me: OK, How do I do it?
SMS: Shovel to the neck.

SMS goes on to describe a mouse guillotine used at work that will give me nightmares. I head out to the newly dubbed tree rat, shovel in hand, heavy of heart. Will this help or hurt my karma? The squirrel is still there. Ants have started crawling on it. Time to do it in. Wait! It's not breathing! Yippeee! Oh wait, curb inappropriate first response. I meant, oh the poor thing, it didn't make it. I shovel it into a bag and place it in our new garbage can. I really hope those garbage men think it looks like the one that got repoed because dirty diapers and a dead squirrel won't be pretty after a week or so. Hell, they aren't pretty now.

Can I go back to work now? Please?