Category: Diary

yesterday i needed a major whine fest and couldnt get a hold of anyone. just now i found funniness on the internet and there is no one online to make fun of it with me!
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because im crazy, im sitting here looking at nurseries on HGTV to get ideas for the fabulous nursery im going to make arianna. i find a link called Twilight themed nurseries. Is that what I think it is? so i click the link. The rooms are beautiful, but check out the description of this one “The dramatic angular ceiling covered in romantic purple fabric resembles the inside of a vampire’s coffin.” While the ceiling is beautiful, who wants to think of being in a coffin!?
http://www.hgtv.com/kids-rooms/8-twilight-themed-nurseries/pictures/index.html
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yay lauren is on so i can get her to look at stuff with me

How your baby’s growing:
Deep in your uterus your embryo is growing at a furious pace. At this point, he’s about the size of a sesame seed, and he looks more like a tiny tadpole than a human. He’s now made up of three layers — the ectoderm, the mesoderm, and the endoderm — which will later form all of his organs and tissues.
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So far….I can smell things more clearly and I’m tired a lot more than usual (tho that isn’t saying much since im always tired.) Other than that, no symptoms so far (fingers crossed, but its still reallly early). I’ve had to switch out my morning (pretend) coffee for chocolate milk.
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The short sale packet will hopefully finally be going to the bank this week sometime. No idea how long it will take the bank to approve it, but at least they will finally actually *have* it.
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Went to Jana’s naming ceremony on Sunday which was neat. I had no idea they give the baby a second, Jewish, name as well. I told my “secret” to Jana and Jenny, which puts the tally up to ten people. I probably won’t really tell anyone else until after the first U/S, but I at least wanted my friends to know.
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because i dearly love Baby’s Named a Bad, Bad Thing, and because I’ll now be spotting my own on the Feb ’12 birth club forums, I decided to make my own list of the ones I actually see in my birth club.
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1. Zeus Anthony for a boy and Memorii Marie for a girl 🙂
2. Girl is Quinneth Lorena Josecita (they’re white), Boy is Elim Anthony
3. girl will be acelynn renesmee jean
4. girl- khias leigh
5. Chjara (KAI-ar-AH)
6. Girl- Evie, Prim, Fallan ..Boy- Syler, Ryker, Finn..
7. Girl: Ruby Tallulah
8. Boy: Bowen Francis

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I’m also going to list all the ones I see on the birth club that are super cute. If only i could have a million kids for my million names. The #1 middle name I am seeing this year is Rose. Every other person is using it.
I’m making this list for people like Sarah and Lauren that can’t seem to come up with names for their babies to choose from the list when it is time for #2. “in other countries like Norway, they actually provide lists for you to choose from. If a name is not “allowed”, then I believe you have to choose something else or pay some kind of fine.”

1. Isabelle Nadine
2. Jacoby Dhane
3. Airen Lynn
4. Gavin
5. Darren
6. Makynna Avery
7. Tate
8. Natalie Marie
9. Emmalyn Nichole
10. Emmery Rose (Emme for short)
11.
12.
13.
14.

this morning i noticed stuff smelling bad. like more so than usual smells; like i was about to gag. so i went downstairs and looked at my calendar and was 4 days past due on my period (assuming a normal cycle, which i havent been really having). upstairs, i had this one random pregnancy test leftover from my ovulation kit. i wasnt even 100% sure if it was a pregnancy test or an ovulation test, because it was just an unmarked foil wrapper, plus i had no instructions for it, so i winged it. as soon as i dipped it in the cup, i could see a +. so i threw on clothes and got lucas and hauled ass to rite aid to buy a real test (thinking – im either pregnant or ovulating realllly late). well the second test was just as positive as the first!
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i was like, stunned, because i had had 0 signs that i was pregnant. i sent paul a photo of the test and he called me and was like “so what is that? does that mean youre pregnant?” and when i asked him what he thought he said “im going to lunch”. it’s funny because i now have all the doubts that i don’t remember having the first time around. like, “am i ready for this? can i handle two kids? can we afford two kids?” paul doesn’t get why im freaked out since it was planned, but planning and being are two different things.
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so im going to copy jenny and lauren and post weekly updates. here is week 4!
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“Right now your baby is an embryo the size of a poppy seed….This week marks the beginning of the embryonic period. From now until 10 weeks, all of your baby’s organs will begin to develop and some will even begin to function..”
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Not really a lot to report there, it being a dot and all. If i were to give my embryo a silly nickname, i would call it poppy. or jellybean. but im not going to, because those are stupid.
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How far along?
Pregnancy Symptoms:
Total weight gain/loss:
Maternity clothes?
Stretch marks?
Sleep:
Best parts this week:
Worst parts this week:
Movement:
Food cravings:
Gender:
Labor Signs:
What I miss:
What I am looking forward to:
Weekly Wisdom:
Milestones:

-annabelle has a gash out of the left side of her cheek. this is the second time ive let her out of the cat room and and her face is like this. theyve been getting along for hte most part for years; ive never seen this level of a wound from a cat fight. im glad when we move we wont have to lock them up in a single room anymore and they will have plenty of space to hang out at night.
– i actually bought two sundresses yesterday because it is too hot in the house to wear pants. im pretty sure this is the first time i have voluntarily worn a dress in like, 20 years or something. i honestly cant even remember the last time i owned a regular dress just for wearing.
– the house inspection went really really well on saturday. it was fun being able to spend a few hours at the house. there was nothing majorly wrong with the house at all – just all little things that can be fixed over time. terence is going to make an amendment to our offer to request the seller to fix these little things, but if they reject it no big deal. i didnt really want to even ask for any of it, but paul wanted to at least see if we could get them to fix it, which i guess makes sense. i dunno, for some reason i feel wrong asking a seller to pay out of pocket to fix little things when they arent making a penny on the sale of the house. on the other hand, all the things that need fixing are things in the basement that came about because the basement was self-finished and not done by a professional, so a few things were done wrong (electrical and plumbing). so i guess it would make sense to correct your own work.
– i met our next door neighbors on saturday. the couple is al(l?)ison and josh. they have a son, Landon, one week younger than Lucas, and a baby girl (didn’t get her name). we had previously met the girl across the street. they are a young couple that just got a golden retriever puppy (no kids). mom (and maybe steph) are probably the only ones that really get how excited this makes me. ive never ever had any neighbors before, and here right by me i will have two other young couples. i feel like a girl in a chick lit novel, already imagining all the fun things my new friends and i will do together.
– yesterday after brunch (which sarah came to, yay) and after kohls shoping, paul and i worked on packing up the basement. first i sat there staring at my mess of a desk feeling overwhelmed. i did end up getting all of my desk (except the breakables that will have to be wrapped and packed separately) packed up. the basement is the most daunting part of the packing, imo. it is where we have the most *stuff*.
-a gravity/gyro bowl does not prevent cheerios from flying everywhere when dropped. tipping research still being conducted by the subject.
– for the second time this week, lucas has somehow managed to crawl into the baby einstein and is actually playing with the stuff in it.

i get so excited when lucas learns something new. lately he must have had some kind of brain spurt because he has picked up a bunch of new things in like a week. i need to do better at writing them all down so i can remember later (so that when lauren asks “when did lucas do…, i’ll actually know the answer.) so here are the ones i can remember off the top of my head:
-he suddenly became interested in colors. instead of calling everything yellow, he has started repeating back all the new colors and can correctly identify a color about 1/3rd of the time.
– just now he had a runny nose and we are playing outside. he left and went inside the house found a roll of papertowels, pulled off a couple, wiped his nose, wadded them up, and put them in the trash. he has done this before with asking for a kleenex, but this time he actually went into the house by himself and got his own.
– this morning when he was helping me do the laundry by putting the wet clothes into the dryer, he saw a bando shirt and said “dada”. then a minute later when i handed him one of my shirts, he held it up and said “mama;” so apparently not only can he identify a clothing item (sock), but he recognizes who wears what.
– he’s been doing the couple word sentences for awhile now (around a week after his 2yr doc visit it started) by adding an adjective to a noun. only two words together, tho, i cant get him to do 3.
– he heard a train this morning and called it a train. i didn’t know he’d ever really heard one before, but he identified the sound w/o seeing the train.
– i stopped keeping track of his word list when he got to about 50. he picks up new words insanely easily now.

My brilliant idea of covering the windows with sheets was in vain – lucas still woke up at 545am despite the room finally being dark. i tried to keep him relatively quiet in the room for an hour, but being in the dark room was making it really hard for me to wake up and deal with him, so i finally took him outside to play until others (meaning paul since the others didnt wake up until 9am+) woke up. after a trip to target (nope, i still dont like starbucks), we were finally on the road to boston harbor around 10.
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the ferry boat was a much more pleasant boat ride. we had dramamine on hand, and the boat was remotely as rocky, and lucas and i spent the 30 min ride at the front of the bow with the cool wind in our faces and him pointing out every “big boat” we passed.
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On Georges Island we went to Fort Warren. It was a very pretty day and being on the island made the temp much cooler than it had been the past few days. The Fort was pretty neat and we were able to wander around all through it.
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By the time we got done, tho, Lucas was way past his naptime and was really cranky. Sadly, Rachel had to catch her bus back to New York afterwards, too. I’m SO GLAD Rachel was able to join us the past two days – it was really fun having her with us. Now we are home chilling, and will prob just hang out the rest of the day and just go out to dinner or something this evening. Despite work schedules and baby schedules, we actually managed to hit up all the major highlights of Boston this week!

Not much to write about today – it was a chill day. We hung out at the house while Steph was at work. At noon we walked to the playground they have a few streets down and Lucas got to play on everything for an hour before we headed back for naptime. Having a playground right down the street made me really excited about our new house where we will have a playground across the street to play on all the time. We took an awesome 2.5 hr nap which was great after him not napping for like three days in a row. steph, paul (Dr Duff gave him a pass at going to the meeting in Cape Cod tonight), lucas, and i went to a nice korean restaurant for dinner. i was surprised that they had quite a few white patrons and their service and food was excellent. boston is a lot more ethnically diverse than georgia.
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Tomorrow we will head to Cape Cod for the Bando competitions!

Below is the email from Terence explaining the current sitch with the house.
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As of right now, Bank of America has determined that for the purpose of our deal, fair market value (FMV) is $166,000. 88% of FMV is the lowest “net” amount FHA will allow Bank of America to “net” so that’s the same as the absolute bottom line.
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Here’s how that would work with our current deal:
1. 88% of $166,000 is $146,080
2. Contract price: $160,000
3. Concessions: $5,700 in closing costs
4. 6% Real Estate Brokerage Fees on $160,000 is $9,600
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$160,000 – $5,700 – $9,600 = $144,700 which is $1,380 less than the absolute bottom line FHA guidelines specify.
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There are other fees that further lower this number that I’m not able to calculate at this time such as prorated taxes that the seller is responsible for and HOA prorations and that kind of stuff.
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What this means is if they hold us to their absolute bottom line, we either have to raise the sales price by $1,380 or lower the closing costs by $1,380 in order for them to net their $146,080.
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Technically, they have the right to force us to lower our closing costs to 1% of the mortgage amount which would amount to be $1544 in closing costs because per FHA guidelines, they allow 1% of the mortgage amount to be used towards closing costs provided the buyer is using FHA financing. In that case, they would be netting $2,766 above their minimum net. Unfortunately that doesn’t mean we can drop the sales price by another $2,766 because the contract specifies $160K as the agreed price.
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So where we stand as of right now is we’re waiting for the attorney’s office to put together a preliminary HUD-1 settlement statement which shows all the numbers, what is owed, what the prorations are, etc. that ultimately shows the bottom line for both sides of the transaction. Once drafted, they send that in to Bank of America. A negotiator/Loss Mitigator there will review the statement and either approve it or come back with the demands of us having to make the numbers work by either increasing the sales price or lowering the closing costs. They may also invoke the 1% rule. They may not too, it really depends on the negotiator’s mood that day. I know that sounds horrible but that’s the way it is.
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How long this can take is a crapshoot. It can be done next week or in 3 weeks or longer before we get an approval. Hopefully it’s sooner rather than later. Because the Seller has hired that attorney’s office to represent them and interact with the bank, the other agent and I don’t have any right to contact the bank directly as they won’t speak to us since we’re not formally authorized. Only the attorney’s office is. So we’re both in contact with them and at last contact they’re on top of it and have established a good open channel of communication with the bank so hopefully that expedites things.

Feeling much better today. I slept in until 10; paul got up super early as usual tho 😦 . We took Lucas to the Museum of Science, which was great because he could run around wherever he wanted and touch anything he wanted and all we had to do was keep tabs on him. It made the day much more relaxed and kept him very entertained. Plus, stephanie’s friend works there and got us in for free which was a HUGE help since we need every penny to buy a house.
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last night stephanie and i got a cake for paul’s birthday and the guy let steph go behind the counter and decorate it herself. she drew a whale on it to commemorate paul’s awful birthday.
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i ordered a sweet tea at dunkin donuts (which are more prevalent than waffle house) and it was awful. they definitely dont know how to make sweet tea. there are also little pizza joints evvverrryywhere.
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lucas never napped. then we went to go pick up stephanie. paul drove her to work this morning in hours of traffic and then we had massive traffic trying to go and get her and get home. the original plan was to go drive-by sightseeing after we got her, but by then paul was back into a horrible mood so we went straight home. now we are ordering indian food! yay!!!!
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terence called today as well. the house appraisal came back. it appraised at 166 which is awesome for us. apparently we still hafta convince them of something, but i dont understand what. i should probably email terence about what the next wait step is/time frame, but ill do that later.