We have a big week ahead so I thought I'd get one last blog post in while the boys are playing with Edward's train. (Note: Daniel's participation consists primarily of trying to eat the train pieces.)

Last Saturday friends invited Edward to play at their house to let us focus on packing, so he had his first solo playdate. By all accounts it was a rousing success. We'll have his friend over once we're settled in the new house, giving her parents a taste of the same (limited) freedom. He was very upset with me for taking him home, but could barely stay awake for the five minute drive. Once home he collapsed in bed for a three-and-a-half-hour nap. So not only did they keep him busy all morning, but they exhausted him so he slept for the whole afternoon. Three cheers for the J Family!

Daniel also did his part by taking two solid naps, leaving lots of time for packing. Grandma and Grandpa came over in the late afternoon to occupy the kids while we continued with tasks too loud to complete while they are sleeping. Then we all went out for pizza. An exhausting but successful day. The only glitch came at the end when we got back from dinner. Edward was running up the back sidewalk and tripped, landing head first on the cement--a scary moment for all of us! We rushed in to put ice on it and distracted him by turning on Thomas the Tank Engine on TV. This was so successful that for the next three days he kept saying, "I need ice," as a ploy for more TV time.

As noted in the last post, Edward is quite proficient in nursery rhymes these days. The night of his accident he was reading "Jack and Jill" and asking "Where's his crown?" "How his crown get broken?" We tried to explain that "broke his crown" simply meant "bumped his head." Edward, clever boy, now answers those who inquire about his bruise: "I broke my crown."

Well, now it's been two hours since I started this post. Daniel needed a nap just before the above paragraph and Grandma and Grandpa arrived to take Edward for the day. So with both boys occupied it was time for some packing and dumpster filling. Now Daniel is waking up, proving that he does in fact have good sleeping skills when given the proper environment (e.g. the removal of his brother from the immediate vicinity of his bed.) This will be much easier to accomplish in the new house, where his bed will be upstairs, away from daytime activity.

We close on the new house Tuesday, move Thursday and close on the old house Friday. We will send an alert with the new address after the dust has settled. For those who need them, our phone and email will remain the same.

And finally, for your viewing pleasure, here is Daniel's favorite post-nap activity (also, clearly amusing to his brother):

Here's Daniel's seven-month picture, which was taken on Sunday (8/10) but for reasons noted below was delayed in posting. We got to celebrate his birthday along with Great-Grandpa's--he turned 88 on 8/8/08 so we all got together on Sunday for a nice lunch and some time together.

So apparently today our buyer asked his agent to ask our agent if we could possibly shift our closing date two days earlier. Oh, to be a 30-year-old single guy with no one but yourself to think about and plan for! He's not being pushy or problematic about it. He asked. We said No. End of story. For him, two days means nothing. For us, it's critical time. Hard to imagine how we will even get done by the established closing.

We've run into a bit of a snag with our own purchase in that there are some significant repairs needed that we did not foresee. Thank goodness for that home inspection! We think some of it is due to the house being unoccupied during our long hard winter and some is probably just the kind of thing you don't notice until you pay someone to look. We're waiting to see if the seller will participate in the repairs. We're asking for about a third of the total costs--not unreasonable, but not a slam dunk either as he apparently is not happy to sell to us at this year's price remembering what we offered last year. Oh well.

So in the meantime, the packing has begun. When Edward wakes from his nap to see yet another empty set of bookshelves, he points and says, "Hey look! What happened?" I'm trying to explain without making him panic about whether all of his stuff will come with him to the new house. Don't want him to think "teenie and paci" need to be boxed immediately!

This video is a bit long, but no time to edit. I won't be offended if you don't watch the whole thing (about a minute and a half.)

Apologies for the blog silence. We were out of town for the weekend and of course, that's when we finally got an offer on our house. We now have both sale and purchase negotiated and are waiting for various inspections. Our buyer wanted to close by Aug. 29, and we didn't feel we were in a position to be picky so we accepted and now must execute this upheaval in a mere three weeks. Expect a quiet month for the blog, but we'll try to throw some pictures up from time to time. We actually got a new camera, but haven't even had time to play with it!

Aside from the real estate insanity, we had a lovely weekend in Evanston. Good times and plenty of good-natured teasing among siblings. The funniest was finding out that Joe treated Bridget to dinner when she was visiting him in D.C. and the immediate and simultaneous shocked reaction from PJ, Nora and me. Joe is enormously generous of spirit but known to be a bit tight of wallet. My mom almost fell off her chair laughing. Another high point for hilarity was the "crutch race" between Ann (broken foot) and PJ (broken leg) down the middle of the street. PJ won by a mile, but Ann notes that he has more than a year of experience and she's a relative newbie at only a few weeks.