Getting Settled

Time has just gotten away from me. We have been so busy with doctor visits, traveling for work and getting situated in our new city that I haven't done a good job updating the blog. We have lots of news so I will get to it.

I finished my last week of travel until the baby is born this week. That should help free up more time to write the blog about the goings on in Iowa. Quentin is growing up so fast. He is speaking in 3 word sentences and has a vocabulary that is expanding daily. We did a little research and at this age he can learn a new word every 90 minutes. Holy Schnikes! There is a lot of that going on around here as language has been getting adjusted on the fly. He will repeat anything you say especially if it's in short sentences. For example let's say you discovered a leak under the kitchen sink (seriously, does every kitchen sink leak?) and as you are prying off the nut holding the whole thing together your hand slips and you take a healthy amount of skin off your hand. One might lead with a 4 letter word expressing great pain. Well, that would be the moment your son, standing next to you with total fascination discovers a new word within 90 minutes of the last. It's at the moment that you have to correct him that you actually said shucks. Shhhhucks. Shucks. That's right Quinny, say it with me, "shucks." Now use it in a sentence, "Oh Shucks that hurt my hand." Very good Quinny. Carrie is enjoying the less aggressive me as I am now fond of saying gems like good grief. It's a whole new world out there and apparently you're never too old to change.

Quinny tries so hard to get you to understand what he's saying. When his vocabulary was limited you knew what he was saying even if he wasn't speaking clearly. Now, he knows so many words it's harder to understand what he's trying to tell you, but interestingly he doesn't get frustrated with you. He'll say the same word over and over 100 times waiting for you to get it. Tonight he kept saying, "queen" and pointing to the floor. I couldn't figure it out for the life of me so I asked him to show me. He takes me to the laundry room and points to the swiffer. He was saying clean floor. He likes to swiffer. He wanted to clean the floor. How cool is that?! Everyday moments are so much fun with him. I'm totally fascinated with how smart he is and what he picks up. Every day it's something new.

Speaking of picking up we have begun the potty training. He has used it a couple of times and we have an official Elmo porto-potty-training-chair. Elmo is incredibly appealing to him. It was one of his first words and everywhere we go he'll recognize Elmo gear. They have Elmo balloons at the grocery store so he's always screaming Elmo at the store. He is fascinated with the bathroom now; washing his hands and taking a crack at the Elmo-porto-potty-infant-chair. I've been told to entice him with M&M's. M&M's in the bathroom? That sounds like a smashingly good idea.

For junior number two we are still working on names. We are all over the map and I'm concerned this kid could go two weeks without a name outside of "buddy" as in come here buddy like the dog had to endure. We are still breached so we toured the hospital and feel good about the care mom and baby will get if we do in fact have a C-section, which is looking more and more inevitable as the days tick by. It's a toughie for us. We spent all this time not finding out the sex and now we are going to choose the birth date. That just doesn't sit right. I feel like a cheater. We are still holding out hope. The next ultrasound is a week from Friday so we'll see if there was any turning then.

My folks are coming to town this weekend so that will give us a breather to get the baby's room pulled together. Currently, it's masquerading as cure all for a house full of boxes. That is to say it's filled with boxes that couldn't or haven't found a proper home. We need a crib, dresser and another chair to hopefully spend less sleepless nights in than Q's overused chair.

Moving In

Finally, Thursday arrives and we can begin the move-in process. Our truck arrived at 10 am to begin the process of getting everything back in the house. We had 300 boxes packed. It took about 8 hours to move out, but they told us it would be quicker to move in because they don’t have to do such fine stacking, taking up valuable time. We ordered pizza for the crew as they worked through most of the afternoon. By 4pm we had beds assembled and the last box, sort of, was put into the garage. When going back through the 300 item manifest we were short several boxes. The driver assured us everything was off the truck but I wanted them to run through the house and find a few of them. After tracking down all but 4 boxes we decided we most likely had everything we needed. We began the task of unpacking.

Friday morning we get up and attempt to take a shower, but the water heater isn’t working. That’s about par for the course. Carrie and I take sub zero showers and decide we will figure out the water heater later. We needed to focus on getting the house unpacked. We did sleep in a bed together last night so we wouldn’t want to spoil ourselves with a hot shower too.

We spent Friday getting the kitchen unpacked, clothes found and living room set up so we could finally relax. We hadn’t really watched TV in nearly two weeks. It was nice to sit down on our very own couch and flick on the tube even for a few minutes to get some semblance of relaxation back into our bones. Oh Direct TV how I’ve missed you. It’s nice to move and maintain channels for a change. You should see our local anchor woman though. She looks just like Farrah Fawcett in that 70s poster that was so popular. She has feathered hair and it's not subtle. I took a picture and have it posted so you can enjoy her hair as much as I have over the last few days. She’s groovy, man. There is that and the lead story of the day, which was the Iowa fans attempting to break the Guiness book of world records for? You guessed it the hokey pokey. Speaking of hokey...I'll just let that one go. Sometimes it's too easy.

Around 7pm that night Carrie’s parents came down to help us out. We put Q to bed and started working on some projects that we needed a little extra help on. Poppa Steve and I got the new washing machine hooked up, which would prove to be a bad omen. We decided we would leave the dryer up to the installers. Did you know that washers/dryers don’t come up with hoses or the plug? I mean why wouldn’t they tell you that upon ordering them? So we get our brand new washer/dryer delivered and we can’t use either because we can’t hook it up. The dryer doesn’t even come with a plug. Even after being a homeowner for five years we’re still learning the hard way.

The washer comes with a bit of grime in the basin so they give you a cake of soap and there is actually a clean cycle that you run to get the remnants of grease and debris from the factory out of it. At this point we were feeling pretty proud of ourselves for getting so much done in so little time. The men decided a cocktail was in order to celebrate our success of the washer running without spilling water all over the floor. We were toasting each other in the kitchen carrying away about how awesome each of us are and secure in our manhood mixed in with the occasional grunt when Carrie comes out of the bedroom with some boxes that need to be put in the basement. Feeling extra manly I told her I would run them down there. I open the storeroom and the floor is totally flooded. The washer went through the draining cycle and that caused the main sewer to back up. But of course. What would moving into a new house be without a leak, an overflow or some sort of water damage? I already fixed a leaky toilet the first night I was there. Ha! So we get the shop vac out and suck up nearly 10 gallons of sewer water. So awesome. And it’s about 10:30 at night. My sister is getting married on Sunday so we need to bolt to Lake Geneva Saturday morning. Not so fast karma retorts.

We get up Saturday morning and call a plumber, and another, and another and another. After about five we finally got one to come out to the house but we literally had to pay about triple to get it fixed on Saturday morning of Labor Day weekend. I repeat, sooooo awesome. After locating our main sewer line and running his machine through it we are back in business. Of course on day number two in the new house we didn’t get a shower either because this time we couldn’t run the water. So here we are with no hot water, get the water heater fixed and then we can’t use the water. I can’t catch a break to save my life. I am beginning to get used to my own stink. That's not a good sign as I transition to the office, with people, other people. People that are unlikely to be used to my stink. I'm going to need to shower. After the plumber fixes our problem he informs us the sump pump doesn’t work and will need to be replaced. I don’t even know what that is. What does your sump pump do I ask? He replies, "I'm glad you asked." That's when you know you won't be glad you asked. Oh, I see, it keeps water out of your basement? Well, what a novel idea! Well, please enlighten me on how much a sump pump costs. $400 additional dollars and if you really want to fix your main sewer line you need this special flushing deal that costs $700. Dude!?! Seriously, here is your money, get out of my house! Where is my landlord’s number?

We are still a sump pump short and for what ever reason I can't get the garage door or the cars to sync up so we can't operate the garage doors. We had the tiniest two car garage in Florida so we were very excited to upgrade to a man-size garage. And now we can't open the doors. Ugh! That's next week's project. One thing at a time. So this week we will hopefully get the sump pump installed and get the garage doors working properly. At that point I believe we will be in business.

We are finally ready to pack up and head to Lake Geneva for a nice long relaxing weekend. We just have to get in the car and drive 250 miles each way on a single lane road. Everyone informs me how pretty it is. Yes and we will get to enjoy it in slow motion (45 MPH). Yippee! Okay, it is sort of pretty but at this point five minutes in the car is a lot to ask and with all the issues getting the house in order it's tough to leave. We will return on Labor Day and I have a flight out at 6am Tuesday to San Francisco and Q has his first day at day care. There is a lot going on.

Here is a picture of Farrah Fawcett. You know what I'm saying is right. It begs the question is the make-up artists 83 years old or is the anchor woman so in love with Farrah she wants to be just like her? Here is the family in front of the moving truck after unloading was completed with both Lucky and Q fascinated with the truck instead of the poor mover who just busted his tail only to be asked to become photographer before he can relax. We also have a shot of unpacking Quentin. He was a stowaway in the ottoman. This concludes moving out, traveling up and moving in. It's definitely been an adventure. There is so much to write about all the changes and so little time to do it. We are hoping to host an open house or two in the next couple of weekends so be on the look out for that. Bring some waders - you know just in case if you come out to the house and there is some sort of flash flood.

Fields of Opportunity

As I continue to mosey along to the finish line I get up Sunday to make my way to our final destination, I - O - W - A. It’s just Lucky and I now. He wants to climb up into the front, sit his front paws on the center arm rest and stick his head out the moon roof. We are on back roads now doing only about 60. But he sticks his head out facing forward filling those big old jowls full of wind and fresh country air. He’s blowing up looking like a blowfish retriever. He’s got his ever present drool raining down on our beautiful new car and me. The car is a total disaster at this point full of dog hair blowing everywhere. It takes us about 3 ½ hours to complete our journey and we arrive at Carrie’s parent’s house in Gilbertville, IA. Ironically my arrival is 9 years to the day that I left Madison to move out to Boston. We are officially back in the Midwest. We only need to brush up on our tractor driving skills.

Carrie, Q, Lucky and I are reunited again in the country just in time to commute the one hour drive one-way down to Cedar Rapids to begin my first official day of work in the office. Lucky has a new friend in a black lab named Odie to run around with and Q was getting tons of attention from his grandparents and a myriad of other Iowa relatives. We all moved in to a one room efficiency in the basement. Quentin is too big for the pack and play at this stage so he’s forced to sleep on the floor. We would bring him in bed with us but instead of sleeping he’s punching one of us and kicking the other. Sleeping he’s not, though. So, we have Q on one side of the bed and Lucky on the other. Carrie and I are in the bed. It’s dangerous to get up and step on someone in the middle of the night but of course with Carrie using the restroom for two she’s up every twenty minutes. One of the joys of having a breached baby this late in the game is that kid is kicking you straight up in the bladder. There is already a ton of pressure but the added drop kicks just adds to the thrill of pregnancy.

It was great to get some home cooked meals and to be a family again, but the commute on top of long days was killing me. So after two nights there I took my sleeping bag, air mattress, Wisconsin camping chair and headed to the new homestead. I was back to sleeping on the floor for a final night in our new house.

The Iowa house is much larger than our Tampa house mostly due to the addition of adding a basement. There are big windows providing an inviting view of the cornfield out back complete with red barn and silo. The windows are equally as large out front giving the neighborhood voyeur a great chance to check out the new neighbors. I must have been quite a sight that first night as I sat right in the middle of a very empty living room sitting on my one piece of furniture, said camping Wisconsin chair diligently typing away on my unconnected laptop. I’m sure the near neighbors were close to calling the cops about the squatter that moved in next door. There are so many light switches in this place you should’ve seen me trying to go to bed. I was trying to turn off the two or three that I had on but the house has such an open floor plan there are light switches on every wall. I looked like I was sending an SOS as I flicked every light on, off, on, off, on, off, on, off trying to get the right ones off. From a distance it must’ve looked like a Pink Floyd laser light show from the 80s.

In case you are counting at home that’s 9 nights in 6 locations and four nights on the floor. The following morning a coworker scheduled a visit with a client. Umm, no. I am sleeping on the floor. Getting a suit on is going to be an insurmountable obstacle. The next day would be move in day.

There is a picture of us rolling across the mighty Mississippi and taking a quick shot to get the welcome to Iowa sign. Poppa Steve dusted off a tricycle for Q to get a ride on. I think this year for his birthday we will give him a big wheel. And then there is the shot of our backyard. All cornfield, all the time. This time of year as the sun sets on the golden hue of the corn it's a pretty relaxing view. I love not having backyard neighbors again, a highlight of our Tampa home. Part IV will be posted tomorrow.

The Adventure

The next morning we got up at 3:30 am to get the car packed and get on the road. We hoped to drive about 800 miles and spend the night in Kentucky camping with the pooch. The drive took us about 12 hours. The speed limit is 70 and there are 6 lanes the whole way so you can drive at your own pace. It’s a pretty drive with lots of beautiful scenery; mountains, jungle, and curvy roads to keep you on your toes. The dog was a freak as usual but had limited space to hide out in. We had to pack him in from the back to fit all our gear so he only had a cubbyhole in the middle of the car that we carved out for him. The satellite radio was a major bonus as was the extra driver for relief and company.

We made it to Mammoth Cave, KY around 4pm which gave us enough time to set up our pup tent and hike around. The park was virtually empty so we could enjoy the wild turkeys, deer, and other wildlife in relative solitude. We ended up hiking down a major sinkhole that was about 2 miles. The way down was fine, but the way back up was a killer. Even the dog was stopping to catch his breath. It was nice to get the blood flowing again after spending so much time in the car but we could've used less of an incline. When we got back to the tent we were all exhausted and looking forward to dinner and a campfire. We cooked up some brats and enjoyed the camp fire all the while eyeing our tent for two. Can't wait to snuggle tonight!

I’ll be the first to admit my brother has a spooning problem. On more than one occasion he has attempted and succeeded climbing into bed with Carrie and me. The first time it happened I seriously freaked out when I realized that scratching on my shoulder was my bro’s beard. “What in the H are you doing dude?!!” According to him it’s a sleep walking problem, which sounds like a likely excuse. As I am enjoying the crackling of the fire my mind continually drifts off to my I love spooning brother. I am trying to figure out if the best idea is to put the dog between us and that way Lucky, well, Lucky may get lucky. In the end we were as snug as three bugs in a rug getting no sleep at all. This was the second night in a row of sleeping on the floor and with fatty (Lucky) in there and me trying to watch my back from Captain Spooner I only caught about 3 hours of off and on sleep. By the time dawn rolled around all of us were itching to get out of the tent and reacquaint ourselves with a little man room. Man room as defined by Webster’s: No more touching each other for at least 24 hours. I am happy to report no animals were harmed or violated during this camping trip

We had 500 miles to go so we gave Lucky a couple mile walk in the morning, packed up and hit the road. Next stop was Lake Geneva, WI. The Midwest is different from the southeast in that the speed limits are lower and two lanes are apparently insufficient enough for the slow paced life. We, on the other hand were climbing the walls. There is so much truck traffic and construction! Does it ever end? It took us a good 90 minutes longer than it needed to to make our arrival in Lake Geneva. Indiana severely needs 3 lanes. Illinois and Wisconsin need to tone down their never ending construction binge. When we were 100 miles out it still took us around 2 1/2 hours to get home and after being in the car so long even the dog is going crazy trying to get out. We had to make an emergency pit stop for Lucky to relieve himself. The last thing we needed was an accident 45 minutes away from our destination. We just pulled over on the side of the road and let him do his business in some unsuspecting yard. Yup, and we are out of here!

After arriving in LG that night we went out to dinner with the family to catch up. I had my first Friday night fish fry in a long time. They don’t use the word fry lightly. The fish was fried. They have fried potato pancakes. I know. What is that exactly? They do expect you to pour maple syrup on them. They have French fries. They had corn fritters, which is a Midwestern way of saying fried dough and they had fried coleslaw. Okay, so the coleslaw wasn’t fried. But man alive I have been here 4 hours and already I have shortened my lifespan 6 months. They did have broiled fish, which I opted for. It, and I am not exaggerating here, came out in a quarter inch of butter with 4, count em’ four, little containers of melted butter in case you wanted to do butter shots. They do love their dairy in Wisconsin. And that night, a bed. I got to sleep in an actual bed – with a mattress and everything. To date that’s 4 days, two nights on the floor and three different locations and one spooning incident for Lucky.

Here are a few pics from the road. There is Lucky blazing a trail and him in the car that I shot while driving. Do you see how he crowds you? I can't tell you how many times I said, "Lay down!!" It never worked so at this point I just let him stare out the windshield. And a picture of our campsite. I'll post Part III tomorrow.

Moving Out

Life is crazy and the simple task of tracking down an hour and an internet connection has been nearly impossible. I flew out to the west coast so I had a long plane ride and found the quiet to write several blog postings about our move. I will post them over the next several days as there was a lot to write. I hope you enjoy reading them. We hope to have more time as we settle in (ya right!) to begin posting on the regular again. Don't give up on the blog and the blog won't give up dispersing all this quality parenting advice!

There were zero fatalities. I really think at the end of the day when one moves from palm trees to corn trees the first thing you should be most concerned about is making an arrival. I made it, my wife made it, my son made it, my brother made it, my in-laws made it and even scruffy made it. We ended up driving around 1,400 miles with a slight turn north to catch a Brewer game. It’s been an interesting ride. I’ve been so busy it took me until Wednesday to realize the Badgers have their opening football game this past weekend. Sheesh!

Carrie, Q and Baby Doe arrived late on Wednesday (8/25) to a parked car (Black Beauty) in the Cedar Rapids International airport’s parking lot full of useful goods for a pregnant woman like baseball cards and booze in the trunk. You know the valuables. But this wonderful wife of mine still took the time at 1o:30 pm after a full day of moving for 8 hours that day, and then got on the plane to fly to IA, to take the car to the new house and unload the stash before taking the one hour drive up north to Q’s grandparents arriving just a shade before midnight. That made for quite a day for Miss Super Mom.

Q of course was a dream. Well, if you can imagine having a dream about a way too tall way too heavy 21 month old kicking the seat of the frequent flier in front of you for an hour or two while throwing the occasional swing at a 32 week pregnant lady, ahem, mom. For the most part he was great. Everyone is going through a lot of transition right now so we are just doing the best we can to cross things off our list and keep what little sanity we have left.

My brother was gracious enough to fly to Tampa to help me drive back. Just to provide some perspective for how great this was. My brother left Wisconsin at 7am to drive to the Milwaukee airport. He flew to Atlanta, took a 90 minute layover. Landed in Tampa. Helped Carrie load her bags on to her plane. Jumped in with me around 5pm. We cleaned up the house, got rid of the goods, had a couple of drinks, slept on the floor after going to bed around 11 pm. Got up at 3:30 am after sleeping in a sleeping bag and drove back through Atlanta to go camping in middle Kentucky. There he slept on the floor of a tent (also in a sleeping bag), woke up at 5 am, drove another 500 miles to get back to his own bed in Wisconsin. Total trip time of 32 hours. Total time in Florida 10.5 hours. Total time in the car? 21 hours. That's a quality brother.

My in-laws drove the aquarium car (Black Beauty) up north a few days ahead and then have been letting the Spiegelhoff clan come home after a day of conquering their everyday lives, a serious challenge as of late, to crash at their pad with Stinky included on the guest list. I can only imagine. My stuff is on a truck. I really miss my stuff. A bed, our own roof and I would settle for one flat screen with an NFL Ticket connection. That’s all one really needs in life.

Before leaving Tampa our roofers showed up at the same time as the movers as did the person building the crates for the real aquarium, TVs and trophy fish on the wall – those will look much more at home in Iowa. So we had a parking lot full of cars and made quite the scene as we were moving out. There was 10-12 people hustling and bustling through our home as little by little our possessions dwindled down out of the house and onto the massive semi parked out front. They used eight foot ladders inside the truck to pack our stuff 20 feet high inside the semi. It’s very much like a giant life-size game of Tetris.

The movers finished at the same time that Carrie and Q needed to catch their flight so in the all the commotion we weren’t even afforded one last final good-bye to our home as a family. I was sad to have missed that as we had so many great memories in Tampa. Carrie was a hormonal wreck on the way to the airport so I was doing my best to keep it together. The poor dog was abruptly left in a totally empty house as he watched his family leave with suitcases. I can only imagine what he was thinking. He was stoked to see me arrive home again 45 minutes later to spend one last night in Tampa.

Upon arriving at the airport my brother had just flown in so as Q and Carrie were getting dropped off he was arriving. Quite the emotional scene he walked into. Q was crying. Carrie was crying. I was trying to get everyone on their way and trying not to think about saying good bye. My brother was very helpful ushering Carrie and her bags to the ticket counter so she could get ready to go through security. He didn’t know what was going on. Q didn't know what was going on. There was way too much going on! Everyone made it and my brother and I settled into a nice evening of cleaning the floors, throwing out any remaining items and sleeping on the floor in sleeping bags like we were 9 again.

Here are a few pictures of us moving out. For perspective, in that first one Q is in front of the truck. He's so small you can barely see him. For scale he is exactly 3 feet tall. I took that pic standing at the back wall in the garage and I still couldn't fit the whole truck in the picture. This will continue in part II tomorrow.