Rescheduled.

Baby I is sitting beside me right now and every few seconds he pats my arm to get my attention and goes, "Mimi! Mimi!" likes it's really important and then when I say "WHAT?" he just smiles and babbles something and pinches me.

He's really very sweet.

Today is as miserable as predicted. Rain, cold, wind, rain, sleet, snow, sleet, rain, sleet...need I continue?

My wonderful day trip to Pennsylvania was cancelled until further notice. I opted to work today rather than sit in bed and lose a days' pay. So now I'm getting paid to have slept in until after nine, sat around playing on Facebook all morning, half-heartedly fed the kids pancakes and now babysit the baby while the others are at a birthday party.

I love my job.

Last night was Shabbat dinner at T's sister's house. The baby was in an incredibly bad mood from the moment we left our house so the night was full of screaming and forcefeeding and other fun games.

We left there at 9:30 but we drove around until 10:30 to make sure all the kids were good and asleep. We drove through the neighborhoods around here and gawked at houses. Huge houses. Some beautiful. Some really, really not.

T has her eye on a particularly showy mansion.

We had intended to leave R behind to sleepover with her cousins and during our slow drive home she called and said she had changed her mind and wanted to come home.

E narrated how importatnt it was that she know she can always call her parents and they will always get her and then as we pulled up in front of the house again he said, "Ok, Kimmy, go get her." And we all laughed. Then he said, "I'm funny, right?"

"Yes, you're very funny."

T went to get her.

They are funny. They had an argument, a real one, last week and while I kept going about my work they kept going about their disagreement. And then T went, "Right, Kimmy?"

And I nearly died laughing.

I took her side but couldn't actually think of any defensive arguements for her. Anyway, it was all very funny and at the end of it they were laughing and the argument was over.

I found out this week that T speaks Spanish in addition to the Farsi that runs in the family. She is trilingual! She had hired a cleaning company for my basement and they didn't show up. She called another company and the same thing happened. This really happens in New York. HOW ANNOYING IS THAT?

So she called a woman who cleans houses, a private self-employee. The woman only speals Spanish so T made all the arrangements and she was supposed to come yesterday but she is now coming on Tuesday instead. I hope.

We are trying to get the basement fixed up in time for J's birthday party on the
20th. Since the lights have been put in and the calls have been made to get the other service people in here we are all having very high hopes for completiong of the basement to be really soon.

I might actually order the garment rack that they are getting for me and put all my clothes away. Or I might continue to sleep with half of my wardrobe. We shall see.

E found Jiminy Cricket and splattered him. Thank goodness. There has been no cricket chirping in my room for the last few days.

As for the upstairs, the main floor never has any news, but it turns out that upstairs the heat, just like the AC, doesn't come through all the vents properly. The kids' room is mildly heated, but the baby's room is like a refrigerator. The master room is pretty chilly and T's closet is like going outside. It's colder up there than it is in my basement, which is very comfortable and smells like warm dryer sheets.

There were some major plumbing issues upstairs over the last month but they have all been dealt with and so hopefully soon the electrical problem that is causing the vents upstairs to malfunction (or not function really) will be addressed soon and they will all stop having runny noses from sleeping up there.

We have been getting movies out of the library for the kids and this week I even splurged and got one for myself which I have yet to watch because I am addicted to my computer. The playroom TV is the only TV with a DVD player in the house but it used to be at kid level and they had battered the poor machine. The TV was always covered in sticky fingerprints and the baby, who had mastered all the buttons, would constantly play with it and smack it.

It stopped working properly about three weeks ago. Sometimes it was fine, and then most of the time the screen was black while the audio worked perfectly. The DVD player would only play DVDs that were REALLY REALLY REALLY clean and had absolutely never been touched by human hand.

As a result, we could only watch movies with both sound and visual on a rare occasion and even then, we usually had to contend with Baby I turning the TV off or changing the channel and ruining everything.

So when I cam home from my day off last week there was a brand new flat screen in the playroom. Not a large, ridiculous one like in the living room, but still a very nice TV. The buttons are cleverly hidden on the side and so Baby I is going to have to find a new hobby, and there is a DVD player built right into the side as well. Everything is golden except I can't get the Fios remote programmed to this TV so we now have two remotes, which wouldn't be a problem for me, but it is a huge problem for R. She's very delicate and finds two remotes, or rather, waiting for me to use two different remotes to get her shows going, very emotionally draining.

In other news, J has begun asking for food!!! For the last week he has actually come down the stairs, refused Pediasure and eaten breakfast without anyone having to wrestle him to the table. He asks for eggs and cereal, one right after the other. AND HE EATS THEM.

Today he even asked for lunch! HE NEVER ASKS FOR LUNCH.

He's been doing pretty good with dinners too, and there was only one night this entire week that he stopped eating halfway through. Since he's been eating so willingly, when he stopped I told him that was it. I wasn't going to argue. I put him to bed and then next day he ate just fine again.

He has lost a pound since going off the Pediasure but I have confidence that he will gain it back. He's also finally grown into a 3t!!!! So, even though he lost weight, I think it's justified.

They just got home from their party and J is down for the night, so I am off to do a puzzle with R and then figure out what tomorrow will hold for me.