Making a Rental a Home: Part 2

Our camera batteries died, so this little series had to take a hiatus until I actually remembered to buy some.  But to continue our quest to make what was once a very unsavory rental a home, here is what we've done to the living room.

For this room, we obviously took out the very stained and a little musty-smelling carpets.  We painted the very white walls a neutral wicker color.  Also, we put up new curtains in a soft green-blue hue that complements the olive couches.  I've also switched up wall hangings throughout the living and dining areas just because I needed a change.

Our living room includes our dining area.  I have plans to paint the table, but that probably won't get done for a couple of months yet.  Until then, the main change is the art area I created to display Shepherd's (and one day Lydia's) artwork.  

Last Wednesday, I decided it was time to do something with this wall, so I painted the Picasso quote, hung up some clothes line, and (ta-da) we have our very own art gallery.  Shepherd gets very excited to see his most recent creations go up on the wall.  If you come to our house, It is likely that he will show it off.

That's the new living room!  Up next, the bathroom!

Another Conversation with Shepherd

(Shepherd squeezes my nose)
Shepherd: Mommy, I've got your nose!  It's got boogers in it!
Me: My nose doesn't have boogers.  Does your nose have boogers in it?
(I pretend to closely examine the inside of his nose.)
Shepherd: I don't have boogers in my nose!  I ate 'em all up!

My Illuminating Conversation with Shepherd This Morning

Me: Gus is a dog, so in Spanish, Gus is a perro.
Shepherd: No, Gus isn't a perro.  He is a dog because he eats his own poop.

I think Shepherd may have just written a very accurate definition of what a dog is.

Making a Rental a Home

Nearly two years ago, we signed a lease for our rental house here in Ardmore without ever actually seeing the house.  It is one of those crazy things people have to do when they keep moving all over the country.  As excited as I was to come to Ardmore, I was heartbroken about leaving our house in Kentucky for multiple reasons: we owned that house, it truly felt like a home, and it was the place to which I had brought Shepherd home when he was born.

When we arrived in Ardmore, we were relatively happy with our rental.  It wasn't great.  The carpets were horrible, but we figured it would do for the one year agreed to in our contract and then we would look around.  As soon as the first year ended, we started looking for a new rental.  We looked and looked and looked, and all we found was that the rentals in our price range in Ardmore, OK, are dismal.  All the looking just made us more discontent.  I started missing our little cottage in Kentucky even more, and we never felt settled.  Buying wasn't (and won't be for a while) an option because we, like so many people in America, were severally stung by the housing crash of 2008, as in we lost A LOT of money on our house in KY.  Finally, it hit us that maybe we needed to learn to be content here.  Maybe it was time to make a home out of the house God had put us in.

Since then, we've been slowly changing all the things that made this house feel so cold and utterly un-homey.  We started by painting the walls, and then (with the generous help of BJ's parents) we were able to take out the carpets and have the gorgeous hardwood floors underneath redone.  To celebrate this whole process, I thought I would start a brief series on my blog looking at each room and showing what we've done and what we've yet to do.    First off, Lydia's room.

I have loved setting up Lydia's room over the past few months.  I'm a girly-girl, so making a girly space has been great.  In Lydia's room, we've painted the walls a soft, creamy yellow, and of course, we've taken out the orange-brown carpet. 

Here is a really good shot of the floors:

Also, I sewed the curtains using some beautiful, bright fabric I found at Hobby Lobby.  The tie-backs for the curtains are just ribbon glued around belt loops. 

As far as our to-do list for this room, we have a bookshelf that we are planning to put in after we paint it peach.  The bookshelf will be for toys, books, blankets, and some clothing items. In all of our rooms, we still have to repaint the base boards, but that is waiting until grandparents come to watch the kids while I get down to work. For the most part, though, Lydia's room is done, and I'm so pleased with her little space!

Speaking of Lydia, here is my new favorite picture of Lydia.  Shepherd was sitting at the dining table painting, so she crawled under the table and poked Shepherd in the belly button.  She was pretty proud of herself.  Seriously, can you look at that face without smiling?  I didn't think so.

 

On BJ and His Lydia

A year ago, I made this prediction on my blog:

"BJ is often thought of as a harsher personality.  This is in fact not true at all when it comes to being a husband and father.  I predict that when he holds this little girl, he will basically turn into a giant bowl of mush."

So, I was mostly right.  BJ has a hard time with the newborn stage.  All the crying and neediness is terrifying for him.  But as the newborn phase quickly passed and Lydia's little personality started to shine through, I have thoroughly enjoyed sitting back and watching BJ fall in love with his daughter.

When Lydia was about 2 months old, I caught BJ walking around with Lydia in his arms and an uncertain smile on his face.  I asked him what he was grinning about, and he responded, "I just realized she's kind of cute."  They've been making googly eyes ever since.

Here is BJ and Lydia's relationship summarized down to a few points, all of which offer ample evidence for the mush that Lydia has planted inside of BJ:

-During meal times, they have staring contests.  Intermittently throughout the games, she offers BJ bits of her food which she quickly retracts when he leans in to get a bite.

-When Lydia hears BJ come in the front from work, she immediately starts crawling in that direction while making an odd, whining, needy sound.  BJ eats it up.

-BJ spends 7:00 to 8:00 every night in the bathroom giving Lydia and Shepherd their baths.  During Lydia's bath time, Lydia sings while BJ rapidly flicks his finger over her mouth making vibrating noises.  Every time we are around people, BJ tries to get Lydia to do their little trick, but she is too shy to do it for anyone but BJ in the privacy of our bathroom.

-BJ likes to hold Lydia while he greets people after his sermon.  I'm not sure if it is so that he can show her off or if it is because it is so entertaining watching her stare people down.  (I believe I've mentioned her impressive social skills before.)

-They do baby acrobats all of the time:

-BJ loves to make her mad by picking on her.  Last night, he dipped her feet for a milla-second into Shepherd's frigid kiddy pool, and she just about had a conniption.  BJ often shows his affection through mischief.

-But perhaps the greatest proof of BJ having been turned into mush by the very existence of Lydia is this: He now uses the word "cute" on a regular basis.  And seriously, who can blame him.

 

The Past Two Weeks in Bullet Points

• We spent an entire week in Alton, IL with Nana and Papa.  Shepherd had a wonderful time playing outside and "driving" Papa's red pick-up truck.  Unfortunately, Lydia got a virus while we were there, so she spent much of the week as a grumpy, limp noodle.
• On the drive home, we arrived in Norman, OK at the same time as a tornado.  It was terrifying.  We could not find any cover, so we scootched up against a bank building and waited it out.  I covered Lydia with a pillow, and BJ put Shepherd in between him and the car seat.  Once the danger passed, I broke down crying.  I've never been that kind of scared for my babies and our family.  I said a lot of prayers during that 15 minutes, and I feel so grateful that we came out unscathed.  I can't say the same for our van, though.  It is likely that our insurance company will classify it as totaled once they get around to our claim.  
• Being an Oklahoman is a mixed bag of emotions right now.  I feel anxiety about the ferocity of our weather, and I saw that anxiety mirrored in the faces of my neighbors every time clouds have blown in this week.  (The tornado sirens went off for us Monday evening, and BJ could see rotation directly above our house).  I also feel in awe of the heroism and courage exhibited by so many during these storms.  And of course, I feel sadness and mourn with all those who have lost their homes, and worst of all, a loved one.    
• On a happier note, my parents are visiting us this weekend, and once again, Shepherd is having a blast.  He hasn't napped since they arrived, and I don't think I've ever seen him go full force for so long.  Lydia is getting in on the excitement, too.  She is even occasionally letting people other than me and BJ hold her.  Occasionally.
• Also on a happy note, my brother, John, and his wife, Stephanie, came up to Ardmore today for the first meeting of our three-person book club.  We all read Northanger Abbey over the past week, and we sat down to a lovely discussion and some hot tea and coffee at Ardmore's local coffee shop.  Yes we are nerds.  But we are happy nerds.
• Last but not least, a picture of Lydia in her St. Louis Zoo cap Nana and Papa bought her last week before she got sick and a picture of my son doing his goofy picture grin:
   
  
  
  Okay, okay.  If you insist, here are two more pictures.  One of Lydia experimenting with how large she can make her eyes while eating.  And one of Shepherd with a bucket on his head.
  
   
  

He is totally my son!

Shepherd has a very different temperament from me.  While there is a stunning resemblance between him and pictures of me in my toddler days, it sometimes seems that the similarities stop there.  Now let me be clear: I am completely okay with this.  I love that little guy to pieces, and I don't want him to be just like me.  I want him to be just like him.  But it has still been fun the past month seeing a little of me peeking out in Shepherd.  Here are three recent moments when I had to sit back and admit that we might be more alike than I'd realized:

1.  I am known for being neurotically careful.  It is a trait I inherited quite honestly from my father.  My dad puts so much stock in being careful that he would stop at nothing to make sure my brother and I followed suit.  For example, when he was teaching us how to drive, he would sit in the passenger's seat telling us stories about wrecks that had happened in whatever location we happen to be driving by.  Twisted? Maybe a little.  Affective? Absolutely.  But that was a tangent.  Back to Shepherd.  So Shepherd was playing on the wood beams that make our raised garden bed.  He was walking very, very slowly and concentrating completely on each move. After making it around a few times, he proudly announced to me, "Look, Mommy.  I be careful."  That's right.  My 2 and a half year old is careful while he plays.

2. I have always warned Shepherd to stay away from very dangerous objects by saying that they could hurt us. What can I say? I've got my Dad's parenting skills. It's never been much of an issue, but now that Shepherd is getting older, he is a little more aware and frightened of pain.  While working at the church garden a couple of weeks ago, I warned Shepherd to stay away from the tiller because it could hurt us.  Throughout the evening, he pointed at the tiller repeatedly and said, "That can hoot us."  I didn't think much of it until a week later when I told Shepherd we were going to work in the church garden, and he immediately said, "The tiller can hoot us."  That level of anxiety can only be attributed to my side of the gene pool.

3.  And lastly, I'm not just a ball of neurotic anxiety.  I'm also really good at positive reinforcement.  So the other day, Shepherd asked me for some "swawberwies."  I told him I'd be happy to get him some and went to the kitchen to wash and cut them into bite-sized pieces.  Shepherd followed me and was watching me when all of the sudden he said, "Good job cuttin' swawberwies, mom."  Thank you, son.  I do have some superb strawberry-cutting techniques.  Since my kids are too young to get me anything for Mother's Day, I'm considering that compliment my Hallmark card. 

I won't be posting for a bit because we're heading out of town tomorrow to spend the whole week with Nana and Papa in Alton, Illinois.  Shepherd has been talking about it non-stop, although he hasn't yet realized that over 10 hours in the car proceed actually getting to see Nana and Papa.  We'll see how that revelation goes tomorrow afternoon.