Adventures in Reading: H0ttie M@les

So I was in the kitchen today, stacking the dishwasher, water running, and Katherine hollered at me from the dining room...

Katherine: Mom, what is H0ttie M@les?
Mom: What?
Katherine: I said...WHAT IS H0TTIE M@LES?
Mom: What?! (silently pleading that she heard wrong)
Katherine: What......Is.....Hot....Teee.....Males?
Mom: Where did you hear that?
Katherine: I didn't hear it. I read it.
Mom: Uh...ok. Where did you read it?
Katherine: Here on the red thing from my Halloween bucket.
Mom: (Having internal struggle. She is suddenly thinking she has some very progressive neighbors. She wonders how in the heck she could have missed this particular "goody" when she went through the bucket. She goes into the dining room).
Mom: Show me.
Katherine: Here! What is this?
Mom: (laughs with relief) Oh, Hot Tamales? They're cinnamon candy.



PS: My creative spelling is merely a tactic to prevent perverts from finding my blog if they google cerain words. We'll see if it works. Apparently if you google "These mashed potatoes are so creamy" you can find my blog on the first page of a google search......above the "While You Were Sleeping" IMDB page all because I quoted it once. So, we're being more careful now.

(R)evolutionary Idea

If you know me, you might have heard me wish out loud at some point for a third arm. I have said it before--and I'll say it again--that I think while a woman's belly is growing and her whole body is changing anyway, why not grow an extra arm (complete with fingers, of course) during pregnancy? Believe me, I would use it!

I can't tell you how many times I have needed that extra arm. For example, this morning I was changing a poopy diaper. Logan is at that fun age where he is learning about his body, so while I was trying to wipe poop off his bum, he was trying to thwart me and distribute the poop onto nearby books, toys and his face. Yuck!!! If I had had that third arm, it wouldn't have been a problem. One hand to wipe, one to hold on to his legs and that third arm to keep his hands out of the mess.

After embarking on this adventure called Mommyhood, I feel like I have gotten pretty stinkin' awesome at doing things with the hands I have. I can unscrew the lid, fill, nuke and re-screw the lid of a bottle/sippy cup while holding a screaming baby. I can carry a baby, diaper bag, purse and up to 4 bags of groceries up three flights of stairs to the third floor where we live. I can unfold a stroller with a baby in my arms. When Logan was tiny, I could even use a public bathroom without setting him on the floor. I will tell you that buttoning your jeans while holding an infant is no small task, but I have done it! The problem comes when there's just no physical way of working around the lack of hands.

Like after I have climbed the three flights of stairs with the groceries and all that stuff, if my key gets stuck in the door (and it usually does), I need two hands to yank on the doorknob while jiggling the key and occasionally pounding on the door and getting mad and praying I brought the cell phone in case the door won't open and I have to call maintenance. That would be one instance when a third arm would be nice.

So next time I get invited to be on the Human Evolution Committee and we're voting on what we're doing next, I'm all over this third arm idea. I know that ditching our baby toes has been winning straw polls and caucuses and stuff, but I really think this is the direction we want to go. So tell your Congressperson to vote "Yes" on the "Giving Moms a Hand Up" initiative.

Yarrrrr!

Today is International Talk Like a Pirate Day! I have celebrated this auspicious holiday for years, mostly by remembering that it's International Talk Like a Pirate Day as I'm on my way to bed. At that point I do my best "Yarrrrr!" at Casey with a mouthful of toothpaste and promise myself that next year I'll remember before bedtime.

So, this time I actually remembered! In honor of my rememberingness, I went to a sage old pirate and he bestowed upon me a real, honest to goodness pirate name so that I can be all fearsome and stuff. This is my pirate name with accompanying description:

My pirate name is:

Dirty Morgan Cash

You're the pirate everyone else wants to throw in the ocean -- not to get rid of you, you understand; just to get rid of the smell. You're musical, and you've got a certain style if not flair. You'll do just fine. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from piratequiz.com.
part of the fidius.org network

Then, of course, I had to get my family involved. Casey learned his pirate name too. We must really be married. Same last name and everything!

My pirate name is:

Dirty Harry Cash

You're the pirate everyone else wants to throw in the ocean -- not to
get rid of you, you understand; just to get rid of the smell. You're
musical, and you've got a certain style if not flair. You'll do just fine.
Arr!

Get your own pirate name
from piratequiz.com.
part of the fidius.org network

Yarrrrr!

Too Cool For School

Katherine missed the deadline for kindergarten...barely. So of all her friends she is the only one not going to kindergarten this year. Two Tuesdays ago was the first day of school and Katherine was not happy to be excluded from it. She cried when we drove past the elementary school and she saw the swarm of kids with their backpacks and all the school buses and begged me to take her. "I will be good!" she cried, as if her behavior was somehow the reason she couldn't go to school. When I explained, again, that she was too young, she said, "But I will be five on my birthday! I am a big girl!"

Back in February, Casey and I decided to have Katherine tested for early enrollment to kindergarten. We felt that she was outgoing enough and smart enough to fit in with the older kindergartners. When we got the test results back, we were pretty disappointed. Katherine had scored quite high on math and reading and had done well in General Knowledge (whatever that is), but she lacked the dexterity (in other words her handwriting was awful...which sadly is an inherited trait. Neither Casey nor I is going to win a handwriting competition any time soon) and the maturity to really be a good candidate. She was still four after all.

In retrospect, there are things I would have done differently. I also have my opinions about the testing process, but it is what it is and I can't change the school district's decision. I try not to think about it too much because Mama Bear comes out and I know I'm being biased. Every mother thinks her child is the brightest and beautifulest and the most special child ever. But mine really is! (kidding!.....kind of) Anyway....

During the summer, I looked into preschool for her, but all the private ones were WAY too expensive, like the price of college tuition expensive. Some of the elementary schools around here have free Pre-K for those who are low income or have a child with special needs. The rest of us get put on a waiting list where we languish and die. Until I learned about the school district's Pre-K program, I was never unhappy about Casey's job. For one brief moment I actually wished he was a grad student again! Then a beautiful ray of sunlight pierced the preschool gloom. That ray was called Joy School.

I have a friend who is participating in Joy School with a few other ladies around town. She told me about it and said they were still looking for one more mom to spread out the load. I jumped at the chance. It's not free and it is certainly not easy, given that I will have to teach one week a month, but it sure beats the pants off $238 a week (!) plus miscellaneous fees and......ugh....fundraisers for preschool. It also gives Katherine a classroom atmosphere that isn't Sunday School. And it gives me two whole hours twice a week to do whatever I want, which--let's face it--is usually running errands or cleaning, but eventually I hope to be able to just be a slug during that time.

Katherine has been in Joy School for two weeks and is having the time of her life. She has her own backpack and a school box with crayons and scissors. She also gets to paint, sing and play with other kids. She is on Cloud 9 and it couldn't have happened to a nicer girl.

Bupp!

My son enjoys a good joke. Considering that he was mercilessly teased from the moment he joined the family, this is hardly surprising. What is surprising is that he responded in kind at such an early age. Logan told me his first joke when he was ten months old. He was sitting on my lap, being all cute and snuggly, when he reached for my finger. The joke goes something like this:

"Hey Mom! Gimme your finger for a minute! Watch me jam it into my mouth, chew on it and drool on it. Hahahahahaha!!!! Get it? I chewed your finger, Mom! It's funny!"

Since then, he has become a connoisseur of fine humor ranging from throwing food, pacifiers and toys on the floor (and laughing hysterically when Mommy picks said thing up for the 9000th time) to experimentally poking the cat to get the best noises. But his favorite joke is also his first word. His first word is "Bupp!" The exclamation point is important because he never just says "Bupp," or "Bupp...." It's "Bupp!" or he doesn't say it at all. Anyway...

"Bupp!" is the word Logan says when he honks somebody's nose or lips or ears, or whatever protruding body part he can reach. And he does this A LOT. It makes it worse that this kid turns into a 12-legged octopus (would that make him a dodecapus?) when it's time to clip those scratchy little fingernails. I can get about two nails clipped before I give up. That means that there are often long, pointy baby nails on and inside my nose when he decides to be silly.

So if you see me with long scratches on my face, it wasn't the cat or some kind of shaving accident. It was just Logan telling jokes.

Only at Our House

Scene: Yesterday afternoon, Mommy and Katherine sitting in the living room, putting a puzzle together. Enter Daddy with a bowl of ice cream.
Katherine: (spying the bowl). Ooooh!!! Olives!!

Katherine: (upon reaching the bowl) Oh, never mind. It's just ice cream.

Monkey See Monkey Do

Mommies Don't Get Sick Days

I am feeling yucky today. I have a cold, which I think makes either number 3 or 4 since moving and I am really really tired of feeling crummy. If I was child-less and still working, I'd muscle through it and go to work, armed with Kleenexes and cough drops, then collapse on the couch when I got home and have my husband spoon-feed me chicken soup. Or, if I was really sick, I'd just take a sick day and sleep all day. But I have kids and it doesn't work like that.

Rule Number 3 of the "Mommy Handbook" says that mommies don't get sick days (Rules 1 and 2 are, "You will be barfed, sneezed, bled, drooled and coughed on. Get used to it," and "Mommies are not guaranteed uninterrupted sleep," respectively). And while I read the "Mommy Handbook" before embarking on motherhood, that doesn't mean I don't get to complain about the rules. Yes, being sick is one of the worst things about motherhood, except potty-training. Potty training is definitely the worst thing I've had to do so far, but being sick is up there too.

If my children were empathetic, being sick wouldn't be so bad, but they're not. Logan doesn't care that I feel gross. He still wants to eat weird stuff off the floor and whack his head on things. In fact it seems that he's the opposite of empathetic because he gets himself into more trouble when I'm sick. Katherine, on the other hand, understands that I'm not feeling my finest and we're not going to Disneyland or the zoo or Paris (thank you Fancy Nancy for that one) today. She also knows not to bother me unless it's important, but you would be surprised to learn what sorts of things she considers "important." There have been multiple emergency sash retyings on her dress-up dress, as well as narrowly averted Barbie wardrobe disasters.

My one shining star in this is my sweet husband who tries his very best to alleviate my suffering. He makes dinner, herds the children and puts them to bed. But unfortunately he's only around for about 2 1/2 of our kids' waking hours.

But perhaps the worst part of all is knowing that despite my nearly constant hand-washing, elbow-sneezing and Lysol-spraying, everyone else is going to get this thing. And then, I will be taking care of sick people, which runs me back into Rules 1 and 2 in the "Mommy Handbook."

In the Cirrrrrrrrrcllllllllllllllle, the ciiiirrrlllllle of liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiife!

The Family Curse

No, it's not the one that all mothers curse their kids with, to have a child just like them, although my mom cursed me with that one years ago. She must not be much of a voodoo priestess, because neither of my kids are at all like me *wink.* No, what I am referring to is the post-baby weight-gain curse brought to you by my Norwegian mountain-climber-goat-herder heritage on Mom's side. This curse makes you gain weight after you have a baby, not lose it. It's VERY annoying. My mountain-climbing-goat-herder genes think that I am climbing mountains and herding goats all day and feeding a baby so every single calorie must be conserved! On the plus side, these genes also give me great hair, perfect for braiding and coiling around my head like Heidi, so it's a two-edged sword.

After Logan was born, I lost all my baby weight very quickly. I was wearing my pre-baby clothes two weeks after he was born. But somewhere around Logan's four-month birthday, the pounds started creeping back on. I have now reached a point where I weigh what I did the day I gave birth to Logan. Now, I can't blame this entirely on genetics. I have had a fair amount of stress in the last few months and my eating/exercising schedule has suffered. But good news! All our boxes are unpacked (well, at least the stuff we need is unpacked) and we're all finally used to a new time zone and now that exercise bike of mine is in our bedroom again instead of upside-down in Katherine's room (dang movers...seriously, what is my four-year-old going to do with a stationary bike?).

So, I'm getting back on the wagon, you know or bike, and pedaling to a new, slimmer me while I watch old episodes of The Wonder Years. I am also experimenting with On-Demand yoga videos (we have cable now...yay!) because hulking a baby around all day is making my shoulders and back stiff. Unfortunately, this resulted in a wrist sprain. So, now I know I shouldn't try to do Astavakrasana the first time out.

This is an Astavakrasana. It means Eight-angle pose in Sanskrit. I'm not cool enough to do this or even pronounce it yet.

Actually, I just bent my wrist too far doing something normal. I was just a tad too enthusiastic about it. I also have a friend who is moving near me and looking for a yoga partner, so I might give up the videos and go to an actual studio.

So, we'll see if I can convince those mountain-climbing-goat-herder genes of mine to let go so I can fit into my go-to-the-library-and-supermarket jeans again.

Manners

Last night after dinner.....

Kirsten: *burp* Excuse me!

Katherine: Mom, there's no excuse for you.

I Am Invoking My First Amendment Rights

That's right.  I am talking about my right to privacy.

Since we've moved I have been feeling extremely out of the family loop.  And unless somebody wants to donate a private jet, there's not a whole lot that I can do about it.  One thing I can do though, is to remind my family to please update their blogs so I know what they are up to.  And call.  Calling is good.  Skype is better, but calling is good.  Another thing I can do is to make sure that my far-away friends and family have a way to see what we're up to.

But I have a problem.  I have this lovely blog, but it is open for the whole world to see, and the whole world has seen it.  At least, some of the whole world has seen it.  I have gotten hits from every continent, except Antarctica, but once penguins have access to the Internet, who knows?  Mostly, I think these are curious blog-hoppers, but still I don't want to share too much, and in some ways I think I already have.  So, I am doing a re-design.  This blog will be more like what I intended it to be in the first place, just me and my thoughts about motherhood with the occasional mention of my children and husband.

There will be a new blog, by invitation only, for the people who actually know me and want to know the mundane details of my life and my kids' lives...and my husband too I guess.  It will feature such exciting things as trips to the zoo and Logan's first tooth (which I'm sure is just around the corner....please please please be just around the corner!).

So, if you know me and would like an invite, you will know how to get in touch to arrange such things.

Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Flattery

I can't tell you how much that saying bugged me when I was little.  My mom would spout off this gem every time my little sister did something to imitate me, which was like, everyday.  Actually, it probably wasn't all that often, but it sure felt like it.  I think what bugged me most about that saying is that it basically said, "Deal with it.  Your sister is going to wear the same clothing as you or say what you say.  And you had better be grateful because she likes you, ok?"  What I was looking for was some age-old way of getting her to stop.  Anyway, yesterday a couple of things happened that reminded me of that saying.


Number 1:

My kids were playing with one of those stretchy, sticky toys. You know, the little plastic string with a small loop in one end and a hand on the other end that sticks to everything. Only this one had jellyfish tentacle things instead of a hand. It came out of a 25¢ dispenser at a doctor's office. Anyway....

Katherine would hand the jellyfish end to Logan and pull back on the toy until she was several feet away. Logan would let go of his end which would recoil and smack Katherine in the leg. They did this over and over and over, getting gigglier each time, until the toy broke. It was mid-stretch and the string snapped back and whacked Logan in the face, which he did not appreciate. Understandably he started to cry. Then Katherine started to cry because her beloved toy was broken.

I was hugging both of them, trying to console them and Logan started calming down. He sniffed a few times and then noticed that Katherine was still crying, so he started up again. Then Katherine started calming down and noticed that Logan was crying again and she started up again. This went back and forth for a bit before I just started laughing. Soon, all three of us were cackling.



Number 2:

I was in the kitchen, and Katherine came in with her baby doll wrapped in a dish towel.  I asked her what she was doing and she said she was rocking her baby to sleep and that I needed to be quiet (she whispered, "be quiet").  So, I quietly asked what her baby's name was.  She told me it was Katherine.  I said that it was funny that she and her baby had the same name.  She said, "Oh no, Mom.  I'm not Katherine.  I'm Kirsten the Mommy."   D'aaawwwwww!!!!  I don't mind being imitated so much anymore.

Mama's Boy

Logan was born 4 weeks early.  When I was 32 weeks pregnant (2 months-ish before my due date), I stopped growing.  My pregnant belly just didn't get any pregnant-er.  My doctor thought maybe I was having an off appointment, but put a note in my file to double check the baby's growth the next time around.  My 34-week appointment came and still my belly was the same size.  My doctor decided that something was not right and had me go in for non-stress tests twice a week and ultrasounds every other week to see what was going on.  The first non-stress tests showed a wiggly, happy, normal baby and the ultrasound showed a healthy, although rather skinny baby.

This was 7 days before Logan was born

 Then at my next ultrasound and non-stress test appointment, the nurse noticed that Logan's heart rate was dropping at odd intervals.  She thought it might be that because it was around lunchtime that I was hungry and so was baby and his little baby blood-sugar was low.  They gave me juice and that seemed to help.  Then at my ultrasound the technician noticed that Logan had not gained any weight at all and worse yet, my amniotic fluid was too low.  Logan was starting to starve.  He was ingesting the fluid, but not peeing it out like he was supposed to.  The heart rate drop was caused my him leaning on his umbilical cord and because there was no spare fluid to cushion things, he was starting suffocate himself.  The consensus was that my placenta was just not doing its job anymore, so Logan had to be born.  They sent me downstairs to Labor and Delivery for a C-Section that afternoon.

Notice the lack of feeding tube...little stinker :)

When Logan was born, he was 4 pounds 11 ounces, several ounces smaller than his NICU neighbors, a pair of twins born at 34 weeks.  The doctors there assured me that he was a healthy little guy and just needed to learn to regulate his body temperature and wake up enough to eat his own food.  He was a trouble-maker in the NICU because he liked to pull out his feeding tube and kick off his blood pressure monitor.  Eight days after he was born, Logan came home.

They warned me that because he was born early and apparently hadn't been growing that he might be a little slow developmentally, but not to worry unless he was still behind by his 2nd birthday. 

Logan has been a little on the slow side.  He rolled over for the first time at 4 1/2 months and never really did roll the other way.  Once he rolled over a few times, he just didn't do it any more.  I imagined him thinking to himself, "Okay, that was rolling over.  I don't get what the big deal is.  It's not that great, but laying here on the floor and kicking my legs, that's pretty fun.  So, I think I'll just stick to that."

 Logan was well over 7 months when he finally sat up on his own. 

So, I was really surprised when he waved to himself in the mirror last week. 

I was even more surprised when he called me, "Mamamammm" today when I came into the living room. 

It's his first word and he hasn't really babbled much.  The most surprising thing is that he said his first word before Katherine did (She said her first word at 9 1/2 months.  It was "Nggkee'eee" which translates to "kitty").  I have those Mom-worries that Logan would fall behind his peers because of his rough start in life, but to beat out his sister--who had the benefit of a fully-functional placenta and a full nine months to bake in the oven--is reassuring.  So, I have to admit that my husband is right and Logan is totally fine and I don't need to worry.

But I think the best part of this whole thing is that I, ME, Mama, was his first word and not that stupid cat.  In your face, Lily!  Hah!

Twelve Days of Christmas Katherine-Style

Even though Christmas is way way over, I had to share this gem.

And in case you don't get the subtle references, here's some help.



You can skip to the last minute or so on this one.

Playing Catch-up

We've been in our new (and.....oh let's say "Quirky") apartment for about a month and a half.  I have successfully survived Thanksgiving, Christmas and unpacking.  So, now it's time to do all the other stuff I've been meaning to do, including update ye olde bloge.

If you're not into looking at pictures of other people's kids who are probably not as awesome as they claim they are, you can go ahead and skip pretty much this whole thing (except this time, you'd be wrong because MY children are at least twice as awesome as I let on).


Back before we moved we took a little trip to visit some of Casey's family.  We ended the weekend with a birthday gathering (I say gathering because there were no hats....It's not a party unless there are hats.  There are also no other sugared-up four year-olds, which is also a requirement.)  at Great Grandma's house for Miss Katherine who is now a whopping four years old!  Here we have a selection of photos from that momentous occasion. 
 

 The drive was a little long for Katherine.   That wood thing is an extremely beautiful chess board Casey's brother gave him, but you're looking at the bottom.

I don't want to bore you with all the presents that she got, so I'm just putting in the important ones:  The Grandma presents!  Casey's Mom gave Katherine the embroidered pillow which Katherine now sleeps with every night.

 My mom gave Katherine this one.  Strawberry Shortcake is now best friends with tiny Cinderella and tiny Sleeping Beauty.

Birthday girl decided I wasn't taking enough pictures, I guess, so she took this one of me.

 And this one....

and this lovely self-portrait.

Oh, and this is a still life of Great Grandma's ceiling.

Casey's mom and dad were here, but they had to leave early, so they missed out on the whole family picture.  And I am a complete moron because I didn't take any photos of them while we were there.  I'm just so used to seeing them whenever we want that I didn't even think to take pictures *Smacks forehead*  So, whenever it is that we save up the money to fly all of us out there, we will be taking photos......lots of them.

....

Next up, Logan's first "real" food.  It's not exactly real, since no self-respecting grown-up would eat that slop, but it's a step in the right direction.  Casey said feeding Logan that first time was like applying joint compound to our recently-repaired wall.  Same shlocky texture, same procedure: apply compound/cereal, wipe away excess, apply compound/cereal, wipe.....

....

And now I present you with Halloween!  Casey had left for his new job by this point, so the kids and I had Halloween by ourselves.  Too bad, because I FINALLY convinced Casey to dress up this year.  He was going to be his evil twin.  Anyway.....

 Presenting Her Majesty of the Realm of the Living Room, Princess Katherine Sleeping Beauty!  She will be signing autographs in the kitchen following the evening's celebrations.

And here we have Logey the caterpillar.  Don't let his sedentary appearance throw you.  This guy can eat through a one piece of chocolate cake, one ice-cream cone, one pickle, one slice of Swiss cheese, one slice of salami, one lollipop, one piece of cherry pie, one sausage, one cupcake, and one slice of watermelon.

 

Here we are at the church's Halloween party.  That's my lame attempt at a butterfly costume.  Butterfly, caterpillar, get it?  I know!  I'm so totally clever, right?

And that brings us up to the end of October.  Tune in next time for whatever it is that I feel like posting.

Joint Compound is the Handyman's Other Secret Weapon

Once upon a time there was a crack in our living room wall.  It was just a little crack.   We didn't pay much attention to it.  We assumed the building had just settled at some point and the previous owners just did a poor job of patching the crack.

When we painted the living room, we patched the crack ourselves and thought it was over.  But no, that crack would never EVER really go away.  Over the years that crack reappeared numerous times and eventually reproduced, so that a 18 inch-wide expanse of our wall from floor to ceiling was a series of interlaced cracks.  The cracks also appeared in a similar pattern on the adjacent wall in the kitchen.  The paint started flaking away and both sides of our wall was looking pretty horrible.  We had no idea what was causing it.

This is the "crack" in the kitchen

And here is the "crack" in the living room

We had a few possible explanations: 1) the dryer (which was on one of the damaged walls) was shaking the crap out of the wall and making it crack and lose paint, 2) the enormous cottonwood tree outside had somehow burrowed its roots under our building and was pushing up on the foundation, causing the cracks, 3) aliens, 4) some other thing we hadn't thought of.

After much hand-wringing and fretting, I decided that I had had enough of that ugly, flaky wall.  I put on my tough lady hat--which I also wore when I fixed our digital piano--and decided to figure out what was causing it and fix the darn thing once and for all.  I called upon all the powers of physics, math, architecture, sudoku and a little divination to solve the problem.  Actually, what happened was that I put my hand on the wall while the dryer was running one day.  The wall was unusually hot.  It turned out that it was the dryer after all, but not in the way we thought.  At some point in the history of our condo, the dryer duct had come apart inside the wall/floor and the dryer was venting into the wall instead of though the duct to the outside.  Casey confirmed this by sticking his arm in the wall and taking a few photos.

  (That would be the disconnected dryer duct choked with lint)

(This is the duct under the floor also disconnected and choked with eons of lint.  Good news though.....lots of insulation!)

Casey's parents quickly came to the rescue, bringing their van and arsenal of tools with them.  Casey's dad has a background in construction so we knew we were in safe hands.  He taught us how to fix the cracks in the wall with a putty knife, joint compound, a wet rag and lots and lots of scraping. 

 Dad in-law assessing the problem

 

 After scraping off all the old flaky paint

Look at that handsome, handy husband of mine!

Then Casey and his dad attacked the problem of the dryer duct.  They created a trapdoor into the floor and reattached the pieces of the duct, securing it with......duct tape!  That's what duct tape is actually for!  I didn't know that!  I always thought it was for tricking out your car!

The trapdoor

All this happened with just a few casualties.  My in-laws' NEW van suffered a primer spill in the back and the blade of my dad in-law's jigsaw broke.  The primer was (mostly) cleaned up with our steamer vac (I guess it can be handy to have a kid who regularly pukes on the carpet).  The jigsaw though was a total loss.  Apparently the size or style of blades the saw needed were no longer made.  But the main thing is that nobody lost any fingers.  We also discovered stratification of our kitchen floor and found evidence of an earlier, groovier civilization.

By the end of the weekend, most of the work was done, but our kitchen was virtually unusable.  Having tools and supplies covering the counters and a major appliance blocking your sink and dishwasher will do that.  But somehow my mother in-law managed to wash dishes anyway.  I didn't see her do it, but I'm pretty sure she went to Hogwarts and is hiding it from us.

After my in-laws went back home, all that was left was to finish the walls.  When it came to re-texturing the wall, Casey's confidence wavered, so I did that part.  I had a pretty good time smearing and splatting (is that a word?) joint compound on the wall to match the original smears and splats.  Then we primed and repainted.  We discovered that our white kitchen was not exactly the same as the white paint we bought so we ended up painting the entire wall, and that required moving our fridge out of the way.

Look at that professional-looking splatting!

All done!  I should totally become a wall plastic surgeon!

 So, I guess the moral of this story is beware of little cracks.  They can be a huge pain to fix.  I think the worst part of this whole experience is that Casey and I don't really get to enjoy the fruits of our labors, since our condo is up for sale and we don't live there anymore.  Speaking of which......Anyone want to buy my newly spiffed-up condo?  You know you do.  Blog readers get a discount!