One week to go

So we have one more week to go in Dallas. ( Travel plans )

These last two weeks have been rather stressful. Jen is desperately trying to finish an experiment before she leaves, and she also agreed to write a review article due June 1st (when she agreed, she had thought we were going to move in early May). She is staying up until 2am every other evening to work on the article. What makes matters worse is that our babysitter is out of the country this week and last, so I've been on full-time Daddy duty, and I can't (and don't want to) ask Jen to take any time off to cover the slack. And it seems like Miriam has been somewhat clingier in the past couple of days, less content to play by herself, and she gets very upset when I leave the room. (Actually, she's actually just starting to treat me the way she treats Jen. Don't know what that implies.)

I've slowly developed a habit of going out to eat when I'm not watching Miriam, for the change of scenery; these past two weeks I've taken this to the extreme, and have been out every night (although occasionally I eat at home first, and just buy a soda.) In the past, my excuse was that I worked better at restaurants, but this past week I haven't been able to do anything productive. I've spent most of the time reading TVtropes.com (WARNING: if you have an obsessive personality, this site will steal your life-- it's like Wikipedia on crack.) which is occasionally fun but more often just mind-numbing. That's kind of what I've been doing: self-anesthesia. Mind-numbing activities are great if your day job is mentally or physically demanding, but watching a toddler is neither really; the proper recovery activity for daddying would be something intellectually stimulating, but I can't bring myself to bother.

Oh, and did I mention that we STILL haven't closed on the house yet? We are at least "cleared to close", but the bank still hasn't sent the paperwork to the title company yet; once that happens, the title company has to prepare their own paperwork and overnight it to us, at which point we go to a local "sister" title company and sign the paperwork, then overnight it back to them. If we're LUCKY, we'll close by Friday, which is two weeks late. If we're unlucky, then we'll have to close on Monday while the packers are packing, or worse, close while we're on the road, while our possessions are in a truck headed for a house which we don't yet own. Fortunately the sellers, whom we met during our visit, have been very understanding, and aren't in desperate need of the cash-- we're not starting a late-closing cascade or anything like that.

So there's that uncertainty, on top of the demands of full-time daddying, and the vague feeling that, even with people coming to pack, I should be working much harder to prepare for the move than I am, although I don't know how. And I'm the LUCKY one, because all I have to do is survive the week, which I know I'll do; Jen actually has to accomplish something.

Bleh.

By the way, our new address, in case we ever get to live there, is
3435 Brantford Road
Ottawa Hills, Ohio 43606 (although Toledo OH will work too).

I'll give it again when (if) we finally close.