A Cerney Periodical

We had no idea how much time we would be spending in this littlish apartment. Between both of us working from home, home schooling Brock, Alice running around like mad, and trying to make a ton of decisions about the house, it's been enough to make a nightcap into a daycap. But we are healthy, employed and the house is still being built, so we can't (shouldn't) complain about a darn thing. Here is a little slice of daily life inside. There are a lot of science and projects going on. Here is our dive into structural engineering and snacks.   Triangles are great. Catapult. It works AWESOME. We are constantly whispering because most of our projects happen during Alice's nap (thank goodness she still takes one). Brock makes some science. With no playgrounds open, we turn to broken sidewalks and rubble. I love Chicago! This is my "work station". It got posted in our employee weekly news. Brock built me a meditative zen temple. 

We have a son too! Alice has been hogging the cuteness, but Brock has plenty of his own to throw around. Here's Brock beaming with pride after we teamed up to defeat The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past from the old SNES days. (If magazines existed, I'd send this to NintendoPower posthaste.) It was an epic adventure that took about five weeks and spoiled way too many dinner conversations as far as mommy is concerned. We're now on to Link's Awakening from the Gameboy. I'm gonna ride this 90s classics phase hard as long as it lasts. And yes, Brock is wearing a tie. It started on Easter, and he has worn a collared shirt and a tie every day since. He just enjoys looking classy while the rest of us slum around in ripped up covid rags. Rebellion comes in many forms.... Here's the tallest magna-tile tower he's ever built. It's even taller than daddy!

 Let's see... How do these things work? Yeah, seems easier with just one Oh, hi daddy! Check out my clean smile!

The playgrounds may be closed, but that won't stop Alice from getting her daily exercise. Here she is perfecting her couch jumps. She loves this game a bunch now. Whenever she wants to play she just comes over and keeps yelling, "THREE! THREE!"

A five year gap has been pretty tough for Brock and Alice to navigate so far. She's mostly still that dumb baby that knocks over delicate inventions and takes away parental attention. But she's starting to win him over little by little with each silly giggle. By far their favorite together activity is a rowdy three-way wrestling match with me on the bed. One day Brock decided to crawl under the fitted sheet mid-wrestle, and sibling magic was born.  Here's the standard version.... ...and here's the action tented by a sheet for bonus fun.

Ok, this one is from March. Not too bad if I say so myself. Here you get to see the unbridled joy with which Alice says her own name. We must have picked a good one. This has also led to some adorable moments of which I do not have video. Last week Alice was being really silly and I called her a goof. She got pretty serious and corrected me. "No!" she said. Then, while cracking a huge smile and pointing to herself, "ALICE!"

My goodness, am I bad at posting stuff or what? Here's a video from way back in January of Alice reading me some jokes from a joke book. Enjoy!

The back wall is done!! Look at the glorious large windows! The glorious rubble! Wall to first floor bathroom gone. And no floor! Matt and I are in debate if we should use that window nook for open shelving as it will be in the kitchen. Nays? Yays? Open shelving so hard, I don't think so, but I love the original brick!!  Bathroom on the third floor. Still works and pretty useful for the stinks! Too bad we are not keeping it this way. Safety first. Hard to get in all in, but this is one of our super cool tall dissected pocket doors.  View into the parlor from what will be the kitchen/living room. The soonish to be kitchen  So we decided to take the ceilings down as well. It was just too uneven and weird with all the holes cut into it and it now makes it super easy for the mechanicals to get in there. Brock was getting a little stir crazy, so I let him have my phone and told him to go take some pictures. This was his first ti