time for some re-arranging...

At least for our living room. See, our house isn't what I would call spacious. When we were looking for homes, we saw and bid on several cathedral-ceiling'ed, ginormous family room'ed abodes, but smarty-pants that we are, we bought our house during the height of the seller's market. Those spacious mansions went to people who sold their souls or bent over the barrell just a smidge farther than Husband's and my pride would let us.

Seriously, we lost one drool-inducing townhome to bidders who were willing to give the current owners FIVE MONTHS of free rent back while they awaited the completion of their new home, which I can only imagine had gold-plated toilet seats and a full compliment of live-in help. That means those buyers were willing to pay their own mortgage or rent while they also paid the current mortgage on the townhome. Who has that kind of money?? Who, in good conscience, asks other people to pay their way for them for five months??!! Wherever they are now, I hope they have lousy plumbing and a butler who steals.

We lost another bid to someone with a blank escalation clause--this means that the other bidder was willing to pay 2K above whatever the highest bid was. How do you beat that??? duh. You don't. You take your sorry ass home in a sling after it's been handed to you buy Money-Bags Magee. Freaking show-off.

So our first home is modest. Only 2 miles outside of Georgetown and a short walk from a lovely shopping center we call the Yuppie Trifecta (Pottery Barn, Crate & Barrel and Whole Foods--with a little Starbucks thrown in for good measure). The location could not be more prime and that's what it's all about, right? Location, location, location!! But like I said, it's modest.

And as our family grows, we need more, umm, space. Well, Husband and I don't need space. We have all the space we require. We're simple folk. It seems, however, that our son is amassing quite a collection of stuff. It's not like I can blame him, really, what with me being the one doing the actual selecting and purchasing of baby gear and goodies. But he doesn't try to stop me, so he's partially responsible, right? A simple, "hey, mom; don't sweat it! Just give me your water bottle and I'll be happy for hours!" would suffice to keep me from buying yet another Fisher Price stacking toy or Lamaze shape sorter. But no....he just squeals and babbles and mommy interprets that as, "I want! I need!"

So to accomodate this bunch o goodies, Husband & I have decided to finish our basement and turn it into a lovely haven for all the little purple turtles and green hippos and Dr Seuss books and jumperoos and Whoozits that my son calls friends. We have made two trips to Lowes to investigate the types of carpet and padding available to us (apparently the options are seemingly endless) and to set up estimates, installation and a partridge in a pear tree.

I'm beyond words excited to have the basement finished. You should see the state of my livingroom right now. As I gaze around the room I see a pack n' play filled with toys, a giant bag of laundry just waiting patiently for me to fold it, a car seat complete with jjcole bundle me and blue bumble bee flair, a stepping stool that says "Ethan" on it, a bumpo seat that we've never used (want one?), a baby Einstein jumperoo with the seat pulled up from the last time I lifted our Olympic jumper out of it, a coffee table scattered with the aforementioned multicolored zoo animals (purple turtle and green hippo), and on the floor--a big old electrical breast pump. And people wonder why we don't have dinner parties anymore.

Today my play group met at one of the girl's church playrooms and it was all carpetted and brightly lit and toys were everywhere and babies were happy. There was much crawling and rolling and squealing and drooling without a coffeetable or a hardwood floor in sight. It was fabulous.

The drawback? In spite of the mess that is my livingroom, the basement is one of Dante's circles of hell. It is where we throw things when people are coming over, or the hallway closet is full, or...it's Tuesday. it's a mess. Basically there is a path from the stairs to the laundry machine and back again. On either side of the pathway---it's really anyone's guess what's living there. And sometime in the next two weeks, Husband and I have to clean that disaster. I am so not looking forward to that. I would love to hire someone to clean it, go get a manicure and pedicure, and return to find a spotless and beautifully organized basement ready to be carpetted. Sadly, I don't think Martha Stewart hires herself out for weekend basement projects. That bitch is so uppity since she got out of prison.

I guess that means it will be Husband & me, up to our knees is who knows what that we threw down there god knows when. Should be a blast. I'll keep you posted.