Never a dull moment
So what have we been up to lately? Well... homing in on a house purchase, in my childhood hometown no less... dealing with sick kids... planning a Florida getaway...
The house is not a sure thing yet; we’ve agreed on a price and had some inspections, but no purchase-and-sale signing yet. Then there’s the small matter of finding an architect to design a renovation and addition, getting various permits and approvals, construction, etc. Why do things the easy way? Buy a house in move-in condition? Au contraire! We like dumps that we can reshape in our own special way. And Ben loves to hang out with guys in the building trades and throw around phrases like “bullnose tile” and “soldier coursing.” Me, I just want a decent kitchen, a clean bathroom and a soundproof room for the kids and their growing collection of small, brightly colored bits of molded plastic. Then we’ll move in and deal with the culture shock of living in a leafy suburb where everyone knows your name and the exact value of your home.
As for children’s illnesses, we’ve been very fortunate with both girls. One of the few exceptions was the winter where Becky had three or four ear infections, and each time we learned this only when we saw pus coming out of her ear from a ruptured eardrum. Poor kid. The problem is that hollering was (and often still is) her default mode of communication, so it’s sometimes hard to tell when something is bothering her more than the usual irritants of life. Low signal-to-noise ratio. Anyway, Sarah has had persistent fluid in one ear and some hearing loss, and it’s now been about six months and it’s still there, so our new ENT at the Well-Regarded Urban Hospital had advised putting in a tube. This takes about 15 minutes under anesthesia, but still. Ben is a lot more freaked out about it because of the general-anesthesia aspect, which he finds scary because he’s never experienced it. I’ve been there five times (and a lot more if you count beer-induced anesthesia) so I’m not terribly worried. Thank God it’s not open-heart surgery or something. Am now clinging to prospect of lying in sun in Florida at in-laws’ place before house/medical onslaught begins in earnest.
The house is not a sure thing yet; we’ve agreed on a price and had some inspections, but no purchase-and-sale signing yet. Then there’s the small matter of finding an architect to design a renovation and addition, getting various permits and approvals, construction, etc. Why do things the easy way? Buy a house in move-in condition? Au contraire! We like dumps that we can reshape in our own special way. And Ben loves to hang out with guys in the building trades and throw around phrases like “bullnose tile” and “soldier coursing.” Me, I just want a decent kitchen, a clean bathroom and a soundproof room for the kids and their growing collection of small, brightly colored bits of molded plastic. Then we’ll move in and deal with the culture shock of living in a leafy suburb where everyone knows your name and the exact value of your home.
As for children’s illnesses, we’ve been very fortunate with both girls. One of the few exceptions was the winter where Becky had three or four ear infections, and each time we learned this only when we saw pus coming out of her ear from a ruptured eardrum. Poor kid. The problem is that hollering was (and often still is) her default mode of communication, so it’s sometimes hard to tell when something is bothering her more than the usual irritants of life. Low signal-to-noise ratio. Anyway, Sarah has had persistent fluid in one ear and some hearing loss, and it’s now been about six months and it’s still there, so our new ENT at the Well-Regarded Urban Hospital had advised putting in a tube. This takes about 15 minutes under anesthesia, but still. Ben is a lot more freaked out about it because of the general-anesthesia aspect, which he finds scary because he’s never experienced it. I’ve been there five times (and a lot more if you count beer-induced anesthesia) so I’m not terribly worried. Thank God it’s not open-heart surgery or something. Am now clinging to prospect of lying in sun in Florida at in-laws’ place before house/medical onslaught begins in earnest.
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