Lovey's Return

Lovey arrived in our family shortly after E was born (thanks to generosity and thoughtfulness of Eric's cousins and their families from New York). E discovered Lovey at the age of approximately 7 months but it was not until we moved to New Zealand (at the age of 15 months) that Lovey's status in our family dramatically changed: Lovey and E became inseparable!

Lovey has been pulling overtime ever since and it understandably took toll on his external resources - but amazingly enough, not on his effectiveness or enthusiasm for the job. Lovey's job description is quite brief: "to provide stability and security to E whenever Mommy and Daddy are lacking or unavailable."



Lovey sometimes procures assistance from Dummy (Kiwi for "pacifier"... I know, yet we lost that battle a while ago) but most of the time it's Lovey, and Lovey alone supporting E through the changes and challenges of his young life.

As said before, Lovey has been in desperate need of make-over for some time now.



Just out of curiosity (and in the recognition of my poor sewing skills) I did some research and found out that Lovey could be easily replaced for US$ 10.00 (plus US$ 5.00 for shipping and handling). I shouldn't have done the "googling"! With that price in my mind it was more difficult to enjoy the next four nights which I spent on fixing up Lovey's ears, paws, his big satin heart, bow tie, and a fringe. Also, I had to wait until E fell asleep before I could sneak into his bedroom and skillfully free Lovey out of his clutch.

Every morning, E would wake up and be extremely excited to see the little improvements I had made to Lovey's appearance the night before. He was happy that Lovey was not going to just "faw part" on him.

My sewing skills have not gotten any better (to Eric's honest surprise) and the feeling in the tips of my right hand's thumb and pointer is only now returning, yet I feel proud I have contributed to Lovey's glorious return.









Lovey has been accompanying E to his new daycare for the last week... He made all the difference!

Our Home Away from Home (v2.0)

Living in the ditch was quite inconvenient and uncomfortable. We lived so far below the tops of the hills that the sunshine hardly ever reached our house which made it very cold and unpleasant. Likewise, we grew to hate the ridiculously long steep driveway. We pushed our recycling bin up that driveway every two months on average - it was too much of an exercise to execute every two weeks!

Thus, when our lease was up (and coincidentally some poor ignorant soul purchased the house) in mid-April, we were determined to move to flat, even ground. One of the two houses we looked at turned out to be just perfect for what we needed: cul-de-sac with a bunch of kids playing outside with minimal supervision (like in the good old days when parents were a bit less paranoid and bad characters just weren't there - or we were willfully ignorant of the danger), walking distance (and mind you, not up or down the hill) to a couple playgrounds and a duck pond, close (but not too close) to the highway and E's new daycare (BTW, he's been loving the new place)... What more can you wish for?! Not much!





So, here are a few pics of our new digs:

The highlight is E's play area (I guess child-less people or parents with less overindulgent personalities would use this space for a living/sitting area or some other functional purpose).





Our bedroom is a bit small but really cozy and sunny.





We like the living room because we can close the door, turn on the little heater and be cozy and toasty at night while watching TV.



The kitchen and dining area are the right size and configuration.










E's bedroom has remained pretty much the same through all the moves.





And on the ground floor, there is Eric's office and an extra bedroom (sparsely furnished but ready for you to come and stay with us while you're visiting The Land of The Long White Cloud).





And a nice big deck with a low-maintenance green area.





What I love about this house is that it is warm (even though central heating or heat pumps seem to have been foreign ideas to the developer), sunny, spacious and all the living areas are on one floor. We can all feel each other's presence without invading our respective spaces (well, E still has some learning to do on this subject).

Our neighbours are friendly and, thankfully, eager to share their kids with E.
I think we'll be happily living here until the time comes to return home (whenever that might be).