A Day of Taupe

Phil spent the day painting. He started with the ceiling, and sometime around noon, I think, finished. Then he and Isaiah did a coat of taupe on all the walls.

My Vernon's Library Supplies order arrived today. What fun! Different types of tape, in different sizes, and even a special tape for replacing pages that have fallen out (or to repair the binding that has torn away). I am checking my books. Some are still in great shape, and some are in need of TLC. With the right tools, that's quite satisfying.

Persevere in Paint

Phil was up early today to continue with primer. Meanwhile, the midwife came for a three-week checkup. Caleb is up to an even 10 pounds, and he looks and sounds good.

By the time the midwife left around 10am, Phil was done with the primer. The space is all white now.

The walls had to dry. Phil headed up to town to get some additional painting gear, and by the time he returned, the primer had dried. Before the light failed, Phil managed to get almost half the ceiling painted. It's white, so it doesn't look much different.

While I was taking advantage of the beautiful light and Caleb's cute clothes, snapping photos, Phil pointed out the cat, fast asleep on the backhoe.

That's cute, but not as cute as baby feet.

In Which We Run Out of Primer

Although I went to bed around 9:30 last night and woke up just before 9am, I don't think I am very well rested these days. An hour up around midnight, an hour up around 4am, other little wakings to say something to Phil when he came to bed, or to help Joe when he needed help getting back in his sleeping bag, or to make sure that Caleb burped well and had a clean diaper. I feel discombobulated, and can't yet imagine having a workable routine.

I went to help vacuum and had about five minutes of effort before Caleb woke up. I tried to pay my credit card bill and, due to updates in the system, couldn't get that done, even after an hour of trying various passwords and three (yes, three!) calls to the company. Fie on updates, I say! Fie! (My favorite moment in call number two was this interaction. "What was your last large purchase?" "Well, I spent a good bit at Whole Foods yesterday," and I gave the rough total, within a few dollars. "I'm sorry, but I need the transaction number." "Um, that's a bit hard for me to provide, since I can't access my account online. Let me see if I can find the receipt." And I actually found it, curled on the floor under the coffee table, surrounded by piles and piles. Not that it did any good.)

I am determined to spend some time fixing books in the near future, so I ordered from Vernon's Library Supplies. Another shelf gave way on one of our bookcases, disgorging probably sixty paperbacks onto the floor. Those can join their comrades in floor dwelling: hundreds of magazines, dozens more books, and, certainly, various plastic toys. So I spent time looking at new bookcases, as ours has doubled as ladder for four years (and ever heavier boys), and it is on its last legs.

Phil had a similar day. He did a final parge-coat over the windows first thing. He checked the copper line for leaks, and cold water is leak free, while hot water has at least one leak somewhere. (Checking for leaks was tricky. Joe had played with the hot and cold taps at one point, and apparently left them open. Those taps were covered in preparation for painting, so poor Phil was quite horrified by how leaky his line was until Isaiah figured it out.)

Then Phil ran to the hardware store. Poor Isaiah's new flip-flops were too small (did I mention that Abraham had a flip-flop break one day, and two days later Isaiah had a flip-flop break? I might have). Happily, the store had both long screws and a mop, so I could clean the drywall on the rest of the ceiling.

I think Phil painted then, but the five gallons of primer ran out before he was halfway done. So he and the older two boys took a three and a half hour trip to town to buy more primer and, for good measure, some extra paint, too, just in case.

So I know this was a day of forward progress, even though it doesn't feel like it much.

Three Phil-Days

The wonder of a baby hasn't worn off for Joe. He initially wasn't sure about holding his brother, and preferred the safety of holding Tigger.

Then he suggested that maybe he could hold Tigger and Tigger could hold the baby. But when I suggested that he just try without Tigger's help, he did a great job.

On Saturday, because we had no outside contractors to wait on, we had an excellent day of accomplishment. Phil valiantly fought a migraine brought on by cement dust and polyurethane; he roughly installed the front door (meaning, it is in place, but not shimmed securely and has no handle). It took maybe five hours: sawing multiple boards, shooting them into place, measuring, lifting, waterproofing. But we have an enclosed space now!

I had the boys come for an hour or two. We had paid the drywallers on Friday, so I wasn't surprised that they didn't show up again on Saturday to come and wipe down walls. Of course, they would have had a swiffer mop or something to make that go quickly, whereas we had just a stepstool and some rags so it went slowly. My Mom did the ceilings and tops of walls, while Abraham and Joe did lower parts of walls. Isaiah did that, too, after a time. The little boys picked up trash. Jadon and Isaiah vacuumed. Jadon ran some errands for Phil. Then Isaiah made coffee and Jadon made cookies, and their help was done.

We never did figure out how to wipe down ceilings with piles of boxes underneath. I think we'll need to get some kind of a mop before we paint.

After wiping down multiple rooms, my Mom took care of the baby. He had an impressive blowout diaper that necessitated changing all three layers of clothing (six pieces of clothing, not counting the diaper). We wonder if he has issues with tomatoes, as he was unusually fussy and his tummy appeared to hurt, and we had enjoyed spaghetti the night before. Poor baby.

I dealt with scraping stuff up off the floor, washing away any orange clay marks I could find (which was pretty difficult on parge-coated walls; I'm happy the dogs can no longer access the interior). I vacuumed, too, which was strangely gratifying. The OSB floor showed a clear difference wherever the vacuum went, especially over cracks. In the picture, the lower right has been vacuumed. Perhaps it doesn't look that different, but there isn't standing grey dust on the surface of the floor.

I also put polyurethane in great globs down the sides of the French doors. It was about an inch wide space, and it was a rather disgusting task: black, tar-like goo that somehow needed to be pressed out of the dispenser (which took a surprising amount of hand strength, considering how easy Phil made it look), and then almost perfectly smoothed out. Those two lines probably took me an hour. It was a task that looked like it should have been just a few minutes. Construction is, apparently, just sort of an opposite time warp (everything slows down), no matter who you are.

My Dad was extra-helpful. He was the duplicate Phil and spent hours putting up a second beautiful layer of parge-coating above the windows. We might need to do one more skim-coated layer, but the many thick trowel-fulls are now done.

And then, after Mom and I both went down in defeat over taping columns and windows, my Dad did that, too. When I went to cook dinner, my parents finished all the window taping.

So we are really close to being ready to paint.

But we wouldn't have been without so much good help. That was at least three Phil-days that got finished in one.

Drywall, Day Four

I had hopes that the last bit of drywalling would happen early in the day, so we could start taping for painting, or ... something! But we were the second project of the day, so though the third layer of mud went on, and then they sanded to sleekness, they didn't finish until almost dinner time.

Phil still had a productive day: he did some engineering. He moved the cows up to the finger, so they are easy to see and care for. He, with some help, moved the extra sheets of drywall, and the larger scraps, out of the structure and, somehow, shoe-horned them into the barn.

When the drywallers left, Phil worked late into the night to get at least one layer of parge-coating on all surfaces. I taped off outlets so we'll be that much closer to spraying paint. There are also good tasks like vacuuming all the dust (after we tried to vacuum before the sanding of drywall today, that effort was mostly wasted, as the "clean" rooms are not clean any more). We could scrape the mud and mortar off the floor, or sand down any more protruding parts of wood flooring.

We did move all the 40-pound boxes of flooring into the structure to acclimate. That's exciting!

Drywall, Day Three

With the drywall all hung, we just needed the mudding and taping done.

At 10:30 on Thursday, no workers had shown up yet. This was a bummer! I hadn't realized there was no guarantee the finisher would come, and the idea of having to wait through the weekend for any additional real progress ... it bummed me out.

Close to noon, though, the finishers arrived. And they were lightning. They did the mudding, taping, and a second layer of mudding on all walls in about three hours. They worked so fast, I only have Phil's description of what they did.

First comes mudding, which is inserting a thick mud compound into all joints. Then unroll tape along all joints, and cover with a second layer of mud. All nail and screw holes also get patched up.

Because of the color difference, the wall doesn't really look "better" necessarily, but it has been worked on, clearly.

After one more day of drywall, we'll be about ready to paint. And so, suddenly, finishing the parge-coating just became a priority. Phil had to do a bit more chicken wire stapling.

Then he parge-coated a first layer over two windows.

The chicken wire still shows through, but another coat should take care of that.

Drywall, Day Two

The drywallers arrived early this morning and finished their part in about four hours. We have walls!

The plan is for the finisher to come the next two days to mud and tape the joints. The factory edge of drywall has a tape-sized depression to make the finishing even and easy. Pretty smart!

After they left, Phil wanted to do what he could to get ready for whatever comes after the drywall is done. The manufactured lumber above the windows and doors is unsightly, but parge-coating won't stick to it. So he dismantled the falling-apart chicken pen and stapled the chicken wire over the lumber.

The windows themselves will need drywall or wood trim or both. This is the part of the process that makes Phil feel like his head will explode. What is the priority? What is the sequence? How should he manage the details. Ugh!

As for the family, Caleb seems to have jumped ahead in his development in the last two days: more alert for a bit longer, head and neck more stable and less bobbly, wide eyes tracking and focusing. I took him to the hardware store on an errand for Phil, and enjoyed the comments from employees and patrons. (One of the employees is also named Caleb, and when a patron tried to figure out where the name came from—East of Eden?—and I summarized the Bible story, employee Caleb smiled and said, "That's who I was named for, too.")

After a few weeks of four hours of sleep and a bit of dozing, I had a nine hour stretch with only a few interruptions last night. And I took a nap, too! What a relief to catch up a bit.

The boys have had a great few weeks of Grandparent visits. From movies, walks, and excursions, they have now moved into books, soap ball formation, and endless games of schooling Grandpa in Connect Four and chess. And some things stay the same: Abraham shows his comic books, Caleb is never alone, Joe shyly contributes a bit to conversations, Isaiah has energy to burn, and Jadon is Jadon, running errands and being helpful.

Drywall, Day One

Phil's parents left early Tuesday morning, but not before I snapped a photo with four generations.

The drywallers arrived on Tuesday morning, a bit later than they wanted because they were given directions that were only almost right. When they finally made it, though, it was fascinating to watch their technique.

They would measure the space to make sure they could put the sheet up (or to trim in advance as needed) and make note of any sockets or light receptacles. Then they put an adhesive on all joists or framing. It won't set for about 24 hours, so wasn't much use for the immediate installation.

Then the two men lifted together and brought the sheet up over their heads. In an impressive coordinated effort, they somehow climbed up on top of their stools, pushed the drywall up, and held it in place with the top of their heads. We were surprised: we expected they would have a lift to hoist the drywall up to the ceiling. That seems really rough on the neck, as the 48 square feet of 5/8" drywall is super heavy.

Once in place, they first would hammer nails into the studs to get the plywood to stay. Having done some hammering, this part of the ceiling work was most impressive to me: not only were they balanced several feet off the floor, supporting a heavy sheet with the top of their heads, but they were accurately hitting nails up over their heads and driving them in with just a few whacks.

Then they used an amazing screwdriver to drive in screws in about one second (and I know that takes some strength, too). Phil had expected that they would have a self-feeding screwdriver, but no. They put on each screw manually.

Once fully fastened, then they used basically a large Dremel-tool to cut out the outlets and lights, and make any trims needed.

For the walls, Phil was surprised to see that they did the top half first (two horizontal sheets make up the 8' wall).

After the top sheet was in place, the second sheet must have been a relief: scoot it into place, no heavy lifting required. To push the sheet up perfectly, they used a jack. So the bottom edge has all the slack. That's why floors have little molding, to hide that variable edge.

As Phil said, "If I had done this, I would have done it the wrong way."

The drywallers didn't get as much done as they wanted, but they finished a couple of rooms, walls and ceiling.

What a difference that makes!

A Baby Dedication

My parents came to visit on Monday. So for that one day, we had all four grandparents and a great-grandpa in town. How special!

Since we've had all four grandparents at all the other four baby dedications, we had a little baby dedication celebration. Of the 25 people in attendance, there were

• all the grandparents and a great-grandpa
• a majority of all Lykoshes in the country: nine of us
• an elder from our church in Boulder and an elder from our church here
• the music minister from our church in Boulder and the music minister from our church here
• two babies under a month old, along with the friend who was expecting when I was expecting Caleb
• two children about age eleven, along with the friend who was expecting when I was expecting Jadon
• at least some of the all the families I have spent Thanksgiving with over the last 34 years
• another fifth son to celebrate the birth of this fifth son
• our family doctor and friend
• a family Phil has moved to be near both of his moves as an adult
• our community group hosts and our Bible study hosts.

As I looked around the room, it felt like an infinite loop, or maybe just a circle of love, all the connections and interconnections around our family in the body of Christ.

We sang beautiful songs by John Bunyan and Charles Wesley, an one or two written by our host. We read beautiful Scriptures about raising children. We had a beautiful time of prayer, with elders and grandparents and even a Lykosh brother or two coming to lay hands on the baby and his parents, just like we have with the other four boys. And Caleb cried, as I especially remember Jadon crying. (With Caleb, it made me chuckle internally. With Jadon, as a young, stressed, tired mom, I remember getting to the end of the prayer time and almost shrugging: "Did that even stick?" I'm so glad that I will never be a first time mom again.) We had moments of shared laughter.

And then, to make me feel especially loved, everyone stayed and talked and laughed and ate until after 11pm. I love how my friends and family, even if they have never met each other before, can genuinely enjoy one another.

A well-traveled friend of mine once said that American parties are lucky to last three hours, but they don't usually go any longer than that (busy Americans). So I'm always immensely gratified for parties of over three hours.

Relaxed Weekend

There was a small, but real, chance that the drywaller would show up on Friday. He didn't (for what part of construction ever happens on the earlier of two possible days?!), but Phil and company finished cleaning out the workspace.

For the moment, it is empty and bright.

And feels, as much as 1000 square feet can feel, spacious.

It is odd to think that soon there will be drywall over all the ceiling joists. (Did I mention that drywall is not only in place for attractiveness, but also to serve as a fire barrier? I think that's interesting.)

And, without any pressure for the remainder of the weekend, Phil spent a relaxed day working on plumbing. He cut out plywood to cover the opening to the crawlspace, too.

Today he tried to install gutters again. After a frustrating afternoon, he has a plan for the future, but what he tried today was a bust.

The boys carved their pumpkins yesterday. Well, in some cases, they drew on the picture and Cheri carved the pumpkin. The older two boys' pumpkins were so thick and tough, Phil used the sawzall to cut off the tops: they were too thick for my (nice) kitchen knives.

They yielded probably six cups of seeds, between them all.

And, finally, some photos of Caleb's characteristic faces.

Phil told me today that he elicited a real smile by touching the tip of his nose and saying, "Boop."

I'm not bitter or anything, but that didn't work for me.

I don't know if it's because of the cabbage I ate on Wednesday, or something else, but poor Caleb has been more spitty since then. Fie!

Perhaps most characteristic of all are the photos of Joe and Caleb together.

Joe remains absolutely captivated with his brother, continuing to talk to him even though Caleb usually can't even turn his head in a semblance of focusing in his general direction.

Joe does seem to delight in figuring out if his brother is hungry. He pokes his finger right up next to Caleb's cheek, to see if he'll turn his head. Very sweet.

Sheetrock Arrives

I was taken aback at 8:10 this morning, when I got a call from the drywall supplier. Their boom truck driver was not available tomorrow, as planned, and so the delivery was going out today.

Phil was at a meeting in town, and the truck was leaving soon, so the rest of the family headed down to the building. Isaiah started the ShopVac, while the rest of us picked up trash, moved large things out of the way, and generally cleared a space for the imminent delivery.

Which turned out not to be so imminent. Four hours later, I finally was able to contact the dispatcher. "The truck ran into some trouble on the first delivery of the day. This is the third or fourth Monday we've had this week. They're coming still."

After we had made an after office-hours trip to a doctor last night, Phil had had a scant five hours of sleep. He would try to doze off, only to wake with a start, wondering if the delivery had arrived. Finally he gave up on the napping and went down to finish installing a vent.

Then he did a little more plumbing, and, finally, cleaned up the space as best he could. Dark fell before he was finished, but most of the construction debris is sorted into buckets, ready for removal with the daylight.

The truck finally arrived.

The boom arm and two unloaders made the process easy, if not swift. (They were probably here an hour, getting the truck set and lifting down the heavy 4x12' sheets.)

The empty space is filled again.

The boys went to a pumpkin patch with Grandma.

Apparently there were little pie pumpkins, and giant carving pumpkins, and not much in between.