A Momentary Reprieve From My Children

You don't hear from me much these days because I have no free time. Almost literally. Nutmeg has stopped napping -- her last regular nap was documented the day I did the all-day tick-tock. Nutmeg goes to bed at 8:30, and Filbertine usually starts power-nursing at 9:30 p.m. This lasts until 11:30 or 12:30 at night. Yeah, a lot of people would say I am stupid for sitting there nursing my baby for two or three hours straight, but she will not take a pacifier so far, and if she is not sucking at this time of night she is stressed out and uncomfortable. She might even start crying if I let her go long enough. And after she nurses herself down like this, she often sleeps until 4 or even 5:30 a.m. And of course, it's not unpleasant to read or watch some tv while the baby is attached to me all evening. I just don't get anything done.

So, like, I gotta go. But first this update: We have decided this is our last week of househunting. We have ruled out Forest Park, we will likely rule out Evanston on Wednesday, and we have isolated a single house in Oak Park that we plan to make an offer on. It's the gray house that I posted pics of here. All we have to do is tour the local school (Thursday), make one last visit to the house with my carpenter uncle (Saturday), and, of course, not like any of the Evanston houses we see Wednesday.

And also we have to keep telling ourselves that Oak Park is not the suburbs. It's so not. But then the Trib goes and prints an article like this that makes Oak Park sound like the gateway drug to Naperville and beyond. I would never move to a recently paved over farm field 3/4 of the way to Iowa! (repeat. repeat. repeat.)