And we're live

Isn't this finished basement awesome? And so, so clean!

The house officially went on the market today. I was half expecting that when it landed in the MLS at 3 p.m., that hoards of people would start calling demanding to make an offer on my house. As it is, one realtor wants to come preview it tomorrow. Right now it feels a little kind getting all dressed up for the prom and having my cousin be the only person ask me to dance. I know, it's early, way early, but I am an impatient person. Plus, I have an adorable husband in Dallas breathing down my neck to get down there and buy a new house already. Sure, he has to be separated from his family and venture out into the great unknown by himself, blah, blah, blah, but I think his job has been easier.

The house does look amazing though. It's so clean and empty right now it actually echoes. I'm not sure I could really live like this. Fastidious is not a word anyone would ever, ever associate with me unless it had something to do with AP style. But I will admit it's nice to come home and have the place not look like Toys R Us threw up on my rug.

Babies!

Meg is obsessed with babies. Really. Her favorite thing to do is to scream out wherever we are to point out any babies in the room, even if said baby is actually older than her. In her mind, anyone smaller than her and/or under the age of three is a baby.

She has a series of toy dolls of various shapes and sizes that she carries with her practically everywhere. A few were gifts from my mom and a couple we stole from her babysitter's house. I am amazed how stereotypical it is -- Andy loved trains and she loves babies. Believe me, we tried to make her love Thomas as much. It sure would have been cheaper and easier since we already own the stuff. No, she loves her some babies. It really does make you think there is some genetic component at work here beyond the gender roles assigned by parents and friends.

I am leaving for a week for work today so I bought the kids toys as a parting gift. Andy selected some Hot Wheels parts and I got her a baby. Heavens, some of the choices out there -- babies that pee and poop (gross! I already have one that does that, why do I want a toy to do more of that?) and others that cry and make noise (again, I already have one of those) or crawl. I settled on a baby that can go in the bath and doesn't make noise. Hurrah! Also, since all her others are light-skinned, blue-eyed babies, I picked one that has dark hair and dark eyes, you know, for diversity's sake (note -- in the picture it links to the white version). Adorableness. The only downside is she wants to take her babies with her everywhere, which can get quite cumbersome. Now I need to find a bag for her to carry them all in. Perhaps I'll find one in Chicago.

Poll

New poll on the right on what to name the rabbit. Let your voice be heard before I do what I want to do anyway.

Flipped over

When Mark left for college, he took his bed and the rest of his furniture with him leaving an empty room. I have spent the past few weeks cleaning it out and removing a baseball wallpaper border that was there when we moved it.

Mark and Ahmed then painted last weekend and we finished up the painting yesterday. We then moved the bookshelves, put in an extra twin mattress and some toys and the result is a guest room/playroom. This is excellent as we now have a place for Mark to sleep when he comes back to visit.

While we were getting all feng shui, Bjorn flipped Andy's bed over so he now has a loft bed (see new pictures added to Flickr). Andy is absolutely thrilled about it, too. I'm a little nervous about him being up so high, but the advantage of the bed being flipped over is that the bed now has built in guard rails as the mattress is about 6 inches lower than top of the rail. The cool thing is that the bed being up higher (about four feet so not nearly as high as a bunk bed) is that he has a little "castle" underneath it now where we've put some toys. I know, it's a shame this kid doesn't have anything to play with.