We have landed safely in Seattle (Mountlake Terrace area right off of 236th) and things are going as expected. We hit a couple of road blocks but have successfully avoided collision and are making headway in small steps.
Tim was able to get some hours at Williams-Sonoma, and we were both fortunate enough to get some hours put in with some friends of mine on Shaw (thanks again Del and Laurie! You guys are the best!)- so we're staying afloat but are motivated to get our own place.
We'd really love to end up in Bellingham, but finding work up there has been very challenging. There are thousands of people looking for jobs and much less than thousands of available jobs. So we may end up staying in Seattle for a few months since that's where there seems to be more work. Hopefully there will be more and more projects up on Shaw that will come up to help supplement, and if we're lucky- there may even be a nice little deal where we could live there for awhile. But only time will tell! I may have an opportunity to do some babysitting for a woman up in Bellingham for some extra money as well- so we're making it work for the time being! :)
Until we catch the next metaphorical "train" to wherever we seem to be going, we are very grateful to our friends Joe and Shawnna for welcoming us into their home, and to their daughter, Emma, for giving up her room so that we can have our own space. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!
Maddox is doing GREAT! He is getting bigger and bigger and all of his way-too-cute clothes are getting too small!!! The one lesson I have learned is that you DO NOT need as many clothes as they tell you! Yes, they do go through up to three outfits a day- but do regular people not do laundry or something? Because I have clothes coming out of my ears, and before I can get to the end of the pile of cute onesies, Tim has already done laundry and I have ALL of his clothes clean again. Point being- I have a lot of clothes that he wore once or twice and then grew out of... it's just stupid. Six super-cute outfits is PLENTY!
He is starting to roll over and is getting his head higher and higher during tummy time. He moves--- or sort of scoots... but is not yet crawling. He's teething, but they haven't yet cut through the gums... but he has very strong jaws and loves knuckles! He drools like the dog from Turner and Hooch and needs a bib on most of the day. He's the giggliest, smiliest baby EVER! Still very good, not fussy at all, is sleeping better during the night--- he even avoided the stomach flu that BOTH Tim and I caught after returning to MLT from Shaw... how he managed to do that is amazing to me! Tim and I were really sick for about 2 days and Maddox was just fine- laughing and kicking and squeeling while Tim and I slept.
We started giving him some bananas after we noticed him watching us eat so intently you could feel the heat of his stare burning into your food as you put it in your mouth. He LOVES bananas! We mixed it with a little bit of rice cereal and breastmilk and he goes "bananas" over it! Once we knew the bananas and rice went through okay we tried some applesauce. He LOVES applesauce too!! And I'm amazed at how much of it he will eat! He goes crazy for it! I've had the "food in the mouth with the sneeze" experience, as well as the "let's see if I can spit this entire mouth of food at mom when she's not looking" experience... fun times... I can't help but crack up- applesauce in my hair and eyelashes... being a mom is really a lot of fun, despite the amount of work it is.
Everyone is healthy and doing well- just doing what it takes to rebuild, as we knew we'd have to do. We both have a positive attitude, a realistic outlook, and a motivated spirit so we're confident that we'll be sitting pretty in no time! :) We are just happy to have each other and our friends and family to help us out!
Cheers to everyone!
Here's a video of Maddox CRACKIN' UP at me. I'm just shaking my head back and forth with my mouth open... for some reason he loves it, and only when I do it... fun times!
In this video Maddox is in his crib squealing away!! I gasp at the end because I spilled my beer on the bed... Maddox was squealing like this for about 15 minutes total, the video only shows about 4 minutes of that... he is so funny...
Here is Tim playing with Maddox. Like I said- he's the giggliest little squealer! I'm going to try to get some video of him doing his little chuckle, but it's challenging. Nine times out of ten, when he sees the camera he clams up and just stares at the camera. You'll notice in some of the videos where Tim and I will notice or comment that he's seen the camera.
