A breath of fresh air

Today was simply a breath of fresh air! Dave hung out with Evan all morning while I took some alone time...worked out, went to the chiropractor (I have been having mid back pain for the last couple of months from holding Evan) and got a mani-pedi. This afternoon we went to Gillson Park in Wilmette with Dave's family for his mom's birthday. The weather was beautiful. We had a picnic in the park and walked over to the visit the gardens of the Bahii Temple. Absolutely breathtaking!

It's been a while since I wrote an update on the house, sadly there is not much to report. Just met with our home insurance adjustor last week and are awaiting approval from our insurance company for the go ahead to start reconstruction. Hoping to get word from them next week.

Updates on E...

I still find myself amazed at how much he is changing and how big he is getting! I am so proud of how much he has learned and what he continues to teach us every day. Evan's really really trying to talk more. He has now added more, ball, and shake to his verbal vocabulary. He still has his good old baby babble that he thinks he is communicating to us but we still cannot make it out. He's singing along in the car while clapping and tapping at times. He's starting to jog, as I like to call it, without out falling down. Still a bit unsturdy but he's walking 99% of the time. Since I planted flowers on the deck he has enjoyed playing outside going in and out of the patio door, picking the flowers and throwing off the deck so he can watch them fall to the ground (mind you we are on the 3rd floor). He signs "help" while he faces the chair as his request to us to help him onto the chair. Once there, he sits, looks around and laughs. He has found quite a few ways to entertain himself, this being one of them. At the park Evan enjoys the swings and likes to climb up and down the stairs. His latest craze are the plastic cups that you can get at Starbucks, Panera, etc. You know the ones with the lids and the straws. I put some water inside with the lid and straw assembled and give it to him. He loves it! He will hold onto it in his stroller, walk with it, try to bring it up to the top of the park's jungle gym. I should try to get a video of it...it's hilarious! E's loving his books. He'll sit on the couch or the floor and page through them while he babbles. He usually brings me a book and signs 'help' for me to read it to him. Over the last week or so he has been himself bringing his toys (usually one or two) to me and Dave. He'll walk over to us with the toy, give it to us, and then walk away. He's also been doing the same with Dex. Except instead of E bringing his toy to Dex, he brings Dex's toy or bone to Dex. Aside from all these fun little developments, E is getting one of his first molars. I was wondering why he had been so clingy, whiney, and picky about eating early this past week and speculated that it might be teeth. And...sure enough, I noticed his upper right gum is black and blue. Ahhh...it looks terribly painful it's no wonder he wanted me to hold him almost all day.

Rejuvenating Weekend

Today was the longest and BEST weekend in a REALLY REALLY long time. After all the chaos with the fire last weekend it was so wonderful to just spend this weekend with ourselves, Dave, Evan, Dexter and I. Saturday we went for a run, saw Elmo, went for a couple walks, cleaned out the garage, grilled dinner, and relaxed. And today...we went to Home Depot to buy flowers for our deck and I planted them, cleaned the house, and went for a run, while Dave and Evan played. After E's nap we went for a walk, to Starbuck's, and home again to grill dinner. E played on the deck while Dave, Dex and I relaxed. I am so glad to have had this kind of weekend. Long overdue. I feel very refreshed!

On our way

So the walls are dried out and the fans and dehumidifier were picked up yesterday. We are waiting to have the building insurance company and our personal home insurance company inspect the damage. The claim adjustor is coming tomorrow morning so we may have a better idea of what we may be able to get done. As Dave and I feel, everything happens for a reason. We are looking positively on this whole situation in that we will do a little remodeling while we are getting our walls repaired. Why not?!?! Of course the planner that I am, I am already looking for paint colors and ideas for updating our decor. For starters, I am thinking of repainting the master bath and possibly our master bedroom, replacing the curtains and duvet cover. We will be getting new carpet in all three bedrooms and quite possibly replacing the vanity in our guest bath (if so I am thinking of getting keeping the same plum paint color but getting a pedestal sink and new ceramic tile. Well that's the fun part of the remodeling. On the flip side, we believe a few more of our walls will need to be knocked down and rebuilt due to the water damage marks and stains. We'll see what the insurance companies say about them and make a decision from there. I'll continue to keep you all posted.

Day Three: Restoration & Recovery

GOOD NEWS...the walls are dried out and we are on our way to starting construction! Aside from being thrilled that tonight is the first night of no workers in our house to 9:30/10p, we are happy to be back to a normal temperature (a comfortable 70 degrees (beats having the air conditioning on and your house set to 65 degrees), no insulation flying everywhere and the peaceful sound of silence (the fans were making us a little crazy :) The fans and dehumidifier should be picked up within the next few days and while we are waiting for them to make their exit, we are awaiting our home insurance inspector and the building home insurance inspector to take a look at our building and individual units.

So we got our wish of staying in the city for at least another year!!! All things happen for a reason, right!

Day 2 of Restoration and Recovery

Boy...do I wish I could say we are back to normal...ha! We are no where near close to that. Today we met with the claims adjuster to determine if it's in our interest to use them or whether we just simply go through our home & building insurance providers to cover costs for all the damage. It looks as though using the claim adjustor is best. When all is said and done, we are looking to not have to pay a single penny for the recovery and restoration of our home. Hoping the roofers who started the fire will be solely responsible. Later this afternoon the restoration and recovery service guys came to knock out our kitchen ceiling and vacuum out the insulation. Once the insulation was all out they sprayed a disinfectant. The disinfectant kills mold that may have grown since the start of the water damage. Lastly (or so we hope this is the last of the drilling and knocking down of walls), they drilled the final holes along two of our kitchen walls. Having experienced what we've dealt with thus far, I am highly considering the insurance company's offer to set us up in a hotel. Although...living in a studio room with a toddler and dog doesn't necessarily sound like a fun time ;0)

9a meeting with the head emergency restoration and recovery man tomorrow. That should be fun! More to come...

The Roof, The Roof, The Roof Was On Fire

Oh my... what a weekend!!! The roof of our building caught on fire. I will try to make this as short as I can. Dave was golfing in the burbs all day while Evan and I were at Gymboree. Evan and I left Gymboree. I happened to check my cell phone and saw that my neighbor called. I called her back and learned that our building was on fire. I ran the 30 minute walk back home in about 15 minutes (mind you E was in the stroller and I was wearing flip flops). Needless to say at the very moment I learned of the fire, I feared the worse...all I could think of was Dexter. I was hoping and praying that he was okay. As I was approaching our block, I saw 2 fire engines, an ambulance, and my neighbors and their dogs but no Dexter. My throat closed up, I started hyperventilating, and could barely move. Thankfully my neighbors quickly reassured me that although Dexter was still inside he was fine. They had contained the fire and no one was hurt. Kindly my neighbor offered to go up and get Dexter from our unit while I stayed with Evan and our neighbors. As soon as I saw Dexter, that he was okay, I breathed a sigh of relief and held back my tears. I was so grateful he was alright. Apparently one of our neighbors, the owner of the top unit was having a water system installed on the roof top deck so they can access water for their home garden up there. The roofer was sealing and the roof and some material which was resting on top of where the furnace lies caught on fire. After talking to our neighbor and the fire chief, we got the okay to go inside. When I entered our house it had a strong smoke smell and there were puddles up and down our hallway, inside the guest bath, furnace room, kitchen and just inside the door way of both of our guest bedrooms. A few of the walls also had water trickling down of which I didn't notice until an hour or so later. As soon as I got Evan situated with a few toys, I cleaned up the water. Oy...what a project!! I was so happy once Dave got home. I explained what happened and we talked about how grateful we were that everyone was alright and that there wasn't much damage to our place. Little did we know that there was extensive damage inside of the walls. Long story short (well I guess I am beyond that now ;0) we had an emergency service take a moisture reading of our walls to see if there was water within. Low and behold nearly half of our home's walls had water sitting within it. Today we had the walls (all the hallway, third bedroom internal wall, all walls of Evan's nursery (one of the walls has to be ripped out), 3 of the kitchen walls, hall closet and furnace rooms aerated so that they can start drying out. During these next few days (however long it takes for them to dry out and the moisture levels to reach a normal level) there will be a dehumidifier and multiple fans spaced throughout our house. I imagine we are going to be going a little crazy after hearing the humming sound of the fans for hours on end. We have been listening to our neighbors fans above us for the past 24 hours plus and hear them as clear as day. Ugh... Each day the moisture levels will be read in order to determine if a more aggressive approach to drying out the walls needs to be taken (sigh). We are hopeful that there is not more damage than has been already done. And...we are hoping that our home insurance will also cover most of the costs, if not all of it. I can only imagine how long this is all going to take when it's all said and done. After this drying out process is done there will be wall repair, painting and cleaning, at least that's what we hope is all that will be left to do. (sigh) What an experience this is!!!! So glad that we are all safe and sound and that it's just the walls of our unit that will need to be repaired...or so we hope. I'll keep you posted on the progress.

It's Official...

Evan is WALKING!!!!

As of Friday E is toddling EVERYWHERE!!! I'd say he is walking 90% of the time now. It's fun and exciting, yet weird and sad because he is no longer a baby. He's a TODDLER!!! Luckily for me and Dave, E is still slow :) Not sure how long it will last, but...we'll enjoy it while it lasts.

Our Little Waddler

So Evan is becoming more and more brave in his attempts to walk. Although he still prefers crawling...he'd win a crawling race for sure, he's giving much more effort in his quest to walk. Over the last couple of days, E will be standing up, holding onto something (like a piece of furniture or tumbling equipment), he sees something that he wants and he'll start to walk to it. Sometimes he makes it there by walking and sometimes, or should I say more times than not, he walks about 5 steps and plops right down and crawls. Smart little guy...he knows he's can get to and from things faster by crawling!

E said "yes" to Dave yesterday morning when they were eating breakfast together. He also nodded his head yes while he said it. Still not signing the please, thank you's, and excuse me's yet...lol. But hoping that comes shortly.

Recently E started going to one nap. Four out of the five days he only took one nap. As of yesterday he is taking just an afternoon one. It will be interesting to see if he will keep this up. Honestly, I was a bit worried how it was all going to pan out until yesterday. He woke up at 6:30a, I tried putting him down at 9a for his morning nap, he laid in his crib for a half hour. Didn't go to sleep so I took him out. We went to Family Grounds to play for a couple of hours, headed home and I put him down for an afternoon nap at 1p and he slept for an hour and a half. It worked out fabulous! Hope today will work out the same (fingers crossed)!

We have a busy weekend ahead 2 birthday parties, 2 more showings (had 1 yesterday too). We are hopeful that one of these days we either get a second showing (enough of the first showings-we've had over 20 already) or an offer. Come on already!!!! The cleaning up for them is starting to wear us out. It's a lot more difficult getting prepped for them with a dog and a child. Jeez.