A Beautiful Mess – Part Two

I woke up Tuesday and went to work.  (I worked Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday, with some major, major briefing going on – thank heavens I’d done that 13 days working in a row and gotten most of it done ahead of time.   I did manage, even with Crazy Brief Times, to get home before 6 each day, and I woke at 5 each day, and I got through an enormous number of boxes in the mornings and nights.)

On Tuesday evening, I was unpacking the kitchen and the big boys were upstairs in the playroom, watching tv.  Craig was running around us with this push-toy he has and loves, even though it’s sorta for littler babies.  He was winding in and out of my legs, running between boxes, all over the place, and then the running stopped and I heard his tiny feet slap-slap-slap up the steps.  He went to join the big boys in the playroom, and I let him go for a few minutes, while I continued to pull things out of boxes and find space for them.

And then . . . CRASH.

The crash was loud.  The yelling was louder.  Jack was panicked, screaming “CRAIG! CRAIG! CRAIG!” which scared me more than anything, even though I know Jack tends to overreact.  I didn’t hear Craig at first and I thought some terrible things as I flew up the stairs, but then I heard him cry.  Turns out he’d scaled an empty bookshelf and pulled it on himself – it’s a pretty heavy bookshelf even without books in it.  It apparently got him right on the bridge of his nose and forehead, pinning his head between the shelf and the futon frame, as he had a giant purply blue goose egg that was sprinkled with bright red streaks and dots.  (Later, I checked the back of his head, and he had a goose egg there, too.)

I took him to the E.R.  It was scary as hell.  He was getting really sleepy – it was 8pm, of course he was sleepy – and I had to do all this paperwork before they would let us in the back.  We finally got back there, and the doctor came and checked his ears and pupils and such, and said everything looked fine but we’d do a CAT scan and skull x-ray to be sure.  Hours later, those things had been accomplished and it was confirmed that the bruising/bleeding/swelling was all on the outside of the skull and that precious baby’s brain was just fine inside.  My hard headed beast.

We got home just before midnight and I put him to bed, nervous but remembering the doctor telling me to let him sleep and not freak out, there was no concussion and sleep was safe and needed.  Then I downed a giant glass of wine and went to sleep myself, and went to work the next day as normal.

The unpacking continued. We had a garage plus two giant attic eaves at our old house, and we have neither of those things here plus we lost a couple of closets, so it’s turned into closet Tetris over here.  We’re getting a backyard shed, and right now the shed stuff is on our back deck, covered in a tarp.  There will be some reduction eventually, but right now I just want it all roughed into where it’s going to permanently live, and then I’ll slim it down.  We also have an extraneous dining table, fridge, mattress, and dryer that are just hanging out in here.  I do miss having a garage for stuff like this.

Friday, we have moving day Phase Two – the long term storage POD was delivered, and I was reunited with my piano at last!  (And many other things, including the boys’ summer clothes . . .)  A friend came over and took most of our empty boxes and packing paper, as she is about to move herself.  Then we got working on getting the POD emptied and integrated – and of course, this happened to be Day 7 of the rabies vaccine adventure, meaning I had to, once again, leave midday to pick up all three kids and get Craig to the clinic before 3pm.  Murphy’s law that these lined up right with the days we had to move, but anyway I didn’t have to be in the house when the guys we hired moved our piano upstairs and our fridge into place (we’re selling the one that came with the house), and my nerves couldn’t have taken that anyhow so it all worked out.

We hired our former nanny, who Craig misses a ton, to come watch the boys in the afternoon yesterday, so we could unpack with no more toddler mishaps.  I bought some clever storage things to maximize under-the-bed and closet spaces, and also bought groceries.  No rest for the wicked.  It’s a mess, I’ll take more pictures once it’s all put together, but here it is for now:

Now we’re in.  There is much work to be done, but here are some photos.