The Chaos Continues

Oh my, where to begin? After the usual amount of Russian drama (no-shows, reschedules, taking unit off the market until we signed on his other unit and then relisting said unit at a higher rate, promising to register us at the correct address but telling us to calm down and stop worrying about it when pressed for more than a verbal commitment, promising to include a sofa in the rent but deciding, after we've already signed the lease, it would be too much work to deliver, etc...) we are all moved into our new place! In reality, the drama was mostly minor and we consider the process to have gone quite smoothly, assuming the registration paperwork comes through. We are still holding our breath a bit, but trying not to worry about it. Our new place is awesome, like, we wonder if it might be too good to be true. Or maybe we were just getting really ripped off at our previous place? The floor plan us an exact mirror of our previous place, so that is a bit trippy. While we had been on the seventh floor in the second entrance, now we are on the second floor of the third entrance of the same building. This made for a rather pleasant move; out the door, down the elevator, out the entrance, down ten steps, walk 50 feet, up ten steps, in the entrance, up the elevator and in the door. We were taken aback by how much stuff we have accumulated in less than a year! Ugh, moving home is not going to be pretty. What are we going to do with all this stuff?!

Our new place is so much nicer than the last one, it's hard to describe all the improvements. Basically, we went from living in a dive (lights didn't work, tiles were broken, doors and windows were broken, nails stuck out of the trim boards, and don't get me started on the kitchen or balcony) to feeling like we are staying at a fancy Bed & Breakfast. And it was even professionally cleaned before we moved in! It is amazing how the things that once seemed clean (relatively speaking, like our highchair and microwave) now look dirty against the backdrop of a pristine kitchen. It is so satisfying to be able to wipe the counter and sink dry after washing dishes and enjoy a clean, tidy kitchen again. No more chipped, stained counter top. No more pile of grains and spices on the counter next to the stove. No more messy stack of containers continually falling off the top of the shelf. Everything fits in cabinets now!

The one big challenge with this place is that it is very minimally furnished; queen bed, armoire (rooms don't have closets here), kitchen table and three chairs. Oh, and maybe a sofa will show up someday? So yeah, there is lots of room for the boys to run around! We've made a couple of IKEA trips to get the bare necessities such as blankets, pillows, sleeping mats for the boys, a clothes drying rack and cook pots. It's a strange dichotomy of living in luxury and feeling a bit like camping all at the same time. Another thing we love about this place is that we are above commercial space (currently vacant, actually) so we don't have to stress about the boys running around and making a racket in the wee hours of the morning and night. Also, we like

the unexpected perk of looking out our windows and seeing trees instead of endless tops of buildings! I also feel much better about being able to climb out a window in the event of a fire. And we don't have to worry about a kid falling out the broken kitchen window anymore either.

It is officially summer here and the weather oscillates between cool (50s) and rainy, or warm (70s) and sunny. Public transportation is already beginning to feel uncomfortably warm so hopefully we will continue to lose our winter insulation. Nights continue to get shorter; officially too short for this chronically sleep-deprived mom. I jumped on the opportunity to anger our old neighbors instead of the new ones and finally night-weaned Lev. We also finally moved both boys into their own room, so sleep quality has been far from ideal, but for the first time since having children there might be hope for the future. Nighttime screaming is definitely not my favorite part of parenting, but we're making progress. Finn is motivated by the promise of a new pedal bike as soon as he can sleep alone the entire night. He quickly mastered his balance bike and Lev is itching to take possession of it.