Friday, October 18, 2013

New floor time


I am so happy with my new floooooor. We've been waiting a while to replace the floor in our entry way, because the carpet was scary. Not only was that the dogs prime place to pee and poop toward the end (we always cleaned it, but still, gah), but it was also the section that was soaked when our old water heater went kablooey and flooded the front hallway.

We started by ripping out the old carpet and exposing the wood flooring below.

My husband sweeping the floor. There was sooo much powder-fine dirt underneath the carpet pad (shudder). Now I see why people replace carpet every time they move.

I also discovered lovely carpet tack strips. Be extremely careful if you are removing these, because they are sharp.




Once all the carpet, tack strips, and staples were up, we were ready to lay down the floor. First, we put down some BlueHawk Underlayment. We didn't have to, but we wanted something between our new floor and the wood.


We bought 100 sq ft of Trafficmaster Allure flooring from Home Depot, and it is freaking awesome. It looks like wood, but is actually made of rubber. Waterproof, skidproof, and pretty dang resilient. It was slightly harder to put together than regular hard laminate floor, but still not bad.

We found the easiest thing was to link the pieces into long strips, then click the long strips together.



While we did that, Kaylee practiced hammering with her plastic hammer, golf tees, and a big block of styrofoam.




This was the annoying part. The wood molding actually goes all the way to the subfloor, so I had to use a special saw to make the bottom even with the rest of the molding. Then we had to cut the floor to fit into the small spaces, around the molding, etc.

But it's so worth it, because it's gorgeous!




Candids:

The guys trying to put in the final (omg annoying) piece

Kaylee made a square out of the boxes and was walking inside of them.


Monday, October 14, 2013

Cherishing 4am

Most people out there are probably thinking the title to this post is crazy, but it was something I was thinking about last night at, you guessed it, 4am.

My daughter has never been a great sleeper. I'd go so far as to say that she's never been a good sleeper. Up until her 2nd birthday she was up every 3 hours, and would need me to help her fall back asleep. I have watched many a sunset from the rocker in her room as I nursed her back to sleep for the 5th time in one night. She's now 3 months over 2, and will usually sleep well, until 4am.

Then I hear her door open, and a soft little voice call out, "momma? Come cuddle?" and I do. Now I know, every sleep trainer will say that I need to not go, lay down in bed, and snuggle her close, but I do. Normally all she needs is 2 minutes snuggled in close to me and she's back into a deep sleep. Maybe it's noises from outside, maybe the cat is meowing, maybe she's reached an age where the night terrors that she has always had have turned into nightmares and she just needs a little reassurance that everything is okay.

And last night at 4am, when my sweet baby asked me to "p'etty p'ease change diaper", and then gave me a big kiss and said "night mommy, I love you", I realized that I need to cherish these 4am visits when the house is asleep and my little girl is still young enough to not be shy about asking for help, or accepting comfort.

Maybe it will mean more sleepless nights down the road, but I never want her to feel alone in the dark. I want her to know that she can always call me when she is feeling scared, sad, or lonely, and that I will be there, even at 4am.