Have some watermelon, baby!

Today at lunch Lost Boy pointed out to Baby O that since he, The Daddy, does not make milk like The Mommy does, he has to resort to other methods of being interesting. Therefore, he occasionally offers tastes of foods that The Mommy does not consider eligible for Baby O's consumption.

Baby O seemed to enjoy gnawing on the watermelon.

Bugs!

Bugs are a fact of life. No matter where you live, bugs are going to get into your house somehow or another. At the apartment we had spiders, fruit flies, flies, and miniature little beetle-like bugs that didn't seem to do anything. But here at the house we have an abundance of biodiversity!

brown beetle

We have spiders (at least three different kinds, one in two sizes), mosquitoes (in two sizes), flies (of course), moths (at least three different types), ants (super big and super small), daddy-long-legs, beetles, and various tiny flying bugs that I haven't identified yet. The windows in the bathroom don't have screens, but since I absolutely must have the windows open to keep the bathroom aired out, we get lots of everything in the bathroom.

Tonight I found this ginormous super ugly big black fly on the mirror. Yuck!

This is how I felt about having him in the bathroom with me:

We are planning to have pest control come out one of these days. But I think I need to plant some of the pest repellent plants I've been seeing in garden pins on Pinterest. And I need to mix up a bug repellent essential oil spray (or lotion!) ...has anyone tried doTerra's TerraShield?

Homesick

We've been sleeping at Grandpa's for a week. Some parts of life are falling into place. For example, the bedtime routine is going very well here.



But I am starting to feel homesick.

For me, home is closely tied to the familiarity of a place. And while Grandpa's house is familiar to me, it is not home. Yet.

I don't like this displaced feeling and depression is starting to tug at me.

But that doesn't mean this is the wrong move for me, or for our family. This is just party of my emotional transition. I know when we move away from this place I will likely feel a similar sense of homesick for the home that we create here.
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We are moving

We are moving. And while I have known this move was a possibility for a while, I forgot how nostalgic and sad I feel whenever I move.

We are moving to Grandpa Fred's house.

Grandpa died last month, but his children (who Lost Boy and I collectively call G2*) don't want the house to stand empty. We will be living in the house while the estate is sorted, and the house is fixed up to rent.

*Grandpa was G1 (Generation 1), his children are G2 (Generation 2), and we - the grandkids - are G3 (Generation 3). Now that Grandpa is gone, his trust has gone into effect and that involves G2, so we also call them the Trust when we're talking about things that they must make a collective decision on.
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5 Things I Learned at Disneyland

1. Momma and the toddler need a day off after two days. (Despite all my anti-meltdown strategies we had two meltdowns before we even got into the park on the third day.)

2. The Pinocchio ride is scary (thematically). We didn't go on it, but my sister and her little family did. They warned us off it.

3. Umbrellas are useful for creating your own shade. (Thanks, Mom!)

4. You only need one Fast Pass if you are going to do the Parent Swap. But if you have two Fast Passes (one each), you can do the ride two times in a row from the Fast Pass line. (It is kind of lonely to go on a roller coaster by yourself, next time we'll have to see if they let you take a partner, like a grown up brother.)

5. Toddlers and preschoolers do not need autograph books when meeting the princesses. In retrospect I think 2Flowers' interactions with them would have been more authentic if I had left the autograph book out.