Aurora Borealis

Agent Murphy and I played with the discovery box again today.  We started with the beads again, but then he took some interest in the ring of various blue links. He was very good at using his “more” sign to ask for another link. After we’d put the discovery box away, he dragged me back over to the couch again. He wanted to climb around and bounce, and he started asking to go “up” with his arms like he’s supposed to.  And now he’s figured out how to climb up on the couch by himself. He’s been able to get down for a while, but this is new. Hang on to your seats, everyone!

(And did I mention he managed to get the steel cut oats cannister out of the cabinet this morning and get it open?  Now I’ve swept up the living room multiple times, and those damn oats keep showing up!)

Here’s The Agent looking very proud of himself for getting on the couch.

I did it! Kah!

So I made a discovery box for Agent Murphy, in which we can create a theme every week or so.  We’re starting with “blue.”  I rounded up a variety of his blue toys and put them in there — blocks, plastic beads, links, stuffed animals.  (Would you believe the boy has two blue elephants?  One a wrist rattle that was the first toy he could play with when he was just a little blob, and the companion animal to the book Will You Be My Friend? from Aunty M., whom we have named Hullaballoo.)  I’d actually put this together a while ago, after I finally got around to wrapping an old shoe box.  But we finally tried it out for the first time last night.

The Agent did better with it than I thought he would.  He seemed to understand that we were going to take out all the items from the box and just play with those toys.  And he did a good job putting everything back in when it was time to get ready for bath.  Mostly he was interested in playing with the 3 plastic beads — actually taking them apart and putting them together again.  That’s good, because he’s really shown little interest in doing that.  Usually he just carries beads around with him and uses them to stir in his pots and pans.  Maybe there is something to this discovery box approach to play.

We said lots of  “blue,” “blue bead” and “bead on,” “on,” “on,” “off,” “on”…  The Agent made a few attempts at some of the sounds.  And earlier in the day while he and I were sitting on the front stoop, I took a pine cone and held it “up” and put it “down.”  He’d sometimes take it and throw it on the ground while saying, “Duh.”  This is progress.

It is not my strong suit.  But I’m going to need it.  It appears that the negotiation of the offer on our house may stretch into next week.  Ugh.

The good news is that the buyer is still interested.  The issue is that our house is on a septic system, not connected to the public sewer.  Apparently FHA requires for their financing that public sewer be connected if it is “available.” Well, there is a sewer tap on the street in front of the house.  But to connect to it, we’d have to come up through the basement (up a hill).  We were told in the past that it would be quite costly.  We didn’t even realize until about a year ago that we were on a septic system.  The tax record for the house says it’s on public sewer, and the septic system was not disclosed to me when I bought the house.  Then we had a seepage issue.  (No wonder, as it had been at least 9 years since it was pumped!)  So at the time we briefly investigated going ahead and connecting to the sewer system, and we heard from several folks that it would be a large and expensive undertaking.  We had the tank pumped and it was given a clean bill of health.  In fact we were told our drainage field appears to be in nearly pristine condition.

Now FHA may require the connection in order to make a loan to this buyer.  Apparently the buyer doesn’t mind at all the idea of being on septic.  (Hey, at least I was honest enough to disclose so he gets that choice and knows what he’s getting, unlike when I bought the house.) But “We’re the government, and we know what’s good for you.”  So our agent and his are working on getting contractors out to look and get a good price estimate on what it would really take.  Then the issue, I guess, is given whatever that number is, does FHA still deem a sewer tap to be available and require a connection, and if so, can we make the numbers work for us and for him to make this deal go?

In the meantime, we had another showing yesterday afternoon. Let’s hope we get a sale out of this somewhere!

Agent Murphy did quite well at his speech therapy session yesterday. He was much more willing to engage and use his signs more and even try to mimic some of the sounds the therapist was making.  So we’ll keep at it.  He has to work on using the sign for “open” (he keeps using the “more” sign when we stand in front of a closed door and he wants it open), and universally recognized gestures for “up” and “come here.”  And we have to do 15-20 minutes a day of a repetitive activity so I’m using the same simple words over and over so hopefully he’ll try to repeat them.

Have to think of what we’ll try today.  Shortly we’ll be heading out to sit on the front stoop, as I’ve promised the little guy.  That’s been a big thing with him for the last week or two.  He makes repeated demands on Mr. Tldz especially to go out there and sit with him.  Maybe we’ll do something with the pine cones and chestnuts.

We got an offer on the house Saturday night.  We countered yesterday and are awaiting the response.  Our agent has been told they’re coming back to us with a counter, but this buyer is using FHA financing and it looks like there may be a snag with the parameters FHA requires for the house.  Waiting to see if that can be resolved and then what their next offer is.  It would be great if this works.  Buyer is propsing a closing date of August 31.

Agent Murphy has successfully slept overnight in the big boy bed 3 consecutive nights.  Really no problems at all.  Hooray!

He’s also starting drinking from a regular, non-sippy cup.  I know I should have tried this with him long ago, but I just didn’t feel up to dealing with the inevitable messes.  He’s actually done pretty well thus far.  Just have to keep reminding him that he can’t wave it around.

Well, the showing happened.  The agent called from the Waffle House nearby and said her client should be meeting her there in a few minutes.  So we got ready and cleared out. Mr. Tldz decided we should use some of the money we set aside for this purpose and go out to lunch.  We tried the pit barbecue place near campus. It’s probably been 10+ years since I’ve been there, and I think I only went the one time, so I couldn’t really remember much about it.  (Though I think that was the first place I had Brunswick stew.)  Pretty good basic Southern BBQ.  We still like JR’s better, but this was good. And pretty cheap, too.

We had a fun time picking on Monday, and couldn’t have picked better weather – the end of a stretch of sunny but (relatively) cool, low humidity days. Due to scheduling necessities, this was later in the season than we’ve gone in the past, and it showed.  The picking was a little harder — really had to get to the underside of the branches and such, but we still did pretty well and have a reasonable haul of berries frozen to get us through the year.  We’ll have to pace ourselves with these more than we did last year, since we did two days of picking last year; but still.

Unfortunately, the place in Social Circle we’d hoped to go picking (because they have the bluebelle variety, that we discovered makes fabulous cobbler) was already closed for the season.  They had a poor crop this year.  So we went down to Fayetteville instead, which meant we got to got to City Cafe and Bakery. We really like it there.  It’s too bad it’s so far away. The German food, as usual, was wonderful; and of course, the desserts.  And we brought some goodies home with us.  (The folks at the farm were a bit rude, so we didn’t get any extra produce there and just spent that money at the bakery instead.) We got a great loaf of German rye bread to go with our stew this past week. And we’ll have it for sandwiches this week.  Agent Murphy liked the bread, too.  Gotta love that kid!

Last Saturday night, L. babysat for The Agent while Mr. Tldz and I went out to dinner with RW and S.  It was goofy how giddy I got about it in the days leading up to it.  Wow — I could actually get a little dressed up, spend time with adults, and eat a meal that didn’t involve keeping an eye on a toddler and his meal.  (Do you think maybe I’m feeling the isolation and lack of conversation of being stuck at home with a toddler all day?  And a non-verbal toddler at that?) Mr. Tldz and I tried to remember the last time we went out somewhere without the Agent.  We were horrified at that thought that maybe it was our anniversary in November; but then we remembered that we’d had dinner at the home of some friends from church in March or early April.  L. stayed with the Agent then, too, and we went over after our friends’ daughter was down for the night.  Okay, that’s not as pathetic as its having been November, but still.

Anyway, we met RW and S at Athens Pizza.  I’d had their pizza, but never been to the restaurant to check out the rest of the menu.  Good Greek food.  Including gyros.  Why didn’t I know about this before?!?  And fabulous desserts, too.  And always fun to see them.  Unfortunately, the conversation turned to politics — the proposed government healthcare plan, in particular — and I found it depressing to see in living color in front of me the stranglehold Leftist thought has on mainline Protestantism and academia. As Mr. Tldz said, it’s just further proof of the old academic joke about a Ph.D. being just “piled higher and deeper.”  Oh well.

I’m hoping we have a nice weekend.  Started off lovely this morning, with steel cut oatmeal and blueberry scones.  Yum!  And there’s supposed to be another showing in an hour or so.  Have to finish picking up in a bit.

Had a good weekend last weekend.  I’ll get to that separately. But Tuesday, following our blueberry picking on Monday, I had a migraine that just wouldn’t quit.  Unfortunately, that meant we had to miss Agent Murphy’s speech therapy appointment for the week.  And then I was just feeling really down in the dumps pretty much the rest of the week. I hate when I get like that.  Hopefully I can shake it off this weekend.