No more renting please!

We spent most of February pleading with our downstairs neighbors, asking them nicely to tone down their pot habit because their smoke goes into Oliver's room through the heating duct. Essentially, he is getting hotboxed while he sleeps.

Even in college I would have been mortified had known I was in someway hurting a child and would have immediately reversed my behavior. I figured most human beings would have the same reaction. But apparently we don't live above human beings and they kept right on smoking their pineapple express to the point where even Bill Maher would blush.

After that did no good, we contacted our super who ignored us and a lawyer who said our case wasn't strong because we were more than half way through our lease. We were left with no choice but to call 911.

Our lease is up May 31 and we clearly have to move. I know I talk about moving all the time. But this is the first year it is a reality.  The longer we stay the harder it will be to leave and we are now looking at a 90 day countdown.

One of the very best reasons to move is that we will be able to buy a place to live.  Not just a 700 square foot apartment.  But a home.

Here are my Top 10 reasons to stop renting now:

10- My neighbors pot habit won't affect my toddler.

9- My dishwasher won't fall out of the hole it sits in.

8- My kitchen garbage won't be within an inch of the pots and pans I use to cook with.

7- My heater won't wake me up in the middle of the night thinking shots have been fired.

6- Government officials won't see me going to the bathroom.

5- No one will be making snowmen drunk at 3am on the terrace below us.

4- I'll be able to paint and move walls if need be.

3- My laundry can stay safely in the dryer if I'm too tired to take it out.

2- I'll be able to design the worlds coolest little boy's room ever.

1- We'll be able to build memories with my family in a place we call home.

We're officially in the market to buy!
It's about to get exciting!

It just keeps getting grosser...

I thought I had seen it all.

I thought after 17 months, I had handled every gross thing that had come my way.

• Spit up for 6 months? Yup.
• The colic for four months? Done.
• Bloody gashes on the side of the head? Check.
• An explosive code brown that forced me to sterilize the apartment? Been there.
• Four months straight of boogers? Finally past that.

But yesterday, Oliver brought gross to a whole new level.

I was knee deep in vomit and could not find my way out.

See I've never dealt with vomit. Not once.
Even in my college years I never hurled.

I was about to snap a pic of Oliver covered in chunks, but I thought that would be crossing the line.

I felt very badly for myself. My husband, on the other hand (who happened to be out of the state during the vomit assault), thought I should have felt worse for Oliver. But Oliver had no fever, no runny nose, no nothing. In fact the spunky little chunk-spewer spent the afternoon dancing his butt off and running wild through the apartment. So I thought I clearly won the "who-to-feel-worse-for" category hands down. After all, Oliver's wasn't the one who cleaned up the floor. He didn't have to rinse out his clothes. And he didn't wash his hair three times yesterday. I did. I did. I did.

After putting him to bed I bee-lined for the shower. There was nothing more I wanted to do than get the smell of Pedialyte chunk off my hands.

There is nothing, and I mean nothing, worse than vomit.

Now...I've seen it all.

Oliver in a nutshell...

Every Thursday, Oliver gets a report card at pre-pre-school.

You never think another person will get to know your babe as intimately
as you, however, last week's report card proves they know Oliver
pretty damn well.