Nomads

The boys and I were nomads this weekend as the tile job that was supposed to take place Friday and Saturday took place Saturday and almost all of Sunday. Between the dust, the screeching noise of the tile cutter and our inability to use the kitchen, I tried to keep them out of the house as much as possible. We spent several hours between the homes of three friends.

Oliver, of course, went with the flow, but Logan was a wreck by Sunday. Seeing the furniture all piled in our living room freaked him out. Then spending half the day in the car took its toll. I'm pretty sure we are not welcome back at the Kolache Factory on Parmer, where he pitched an attention-grabber Sunday morning before announcing his plans to walk home to see Daddy. I'm not entirely sure we're welcome back at the home of our friends R and J, where he threw himself on the floor in the hallway and cried for 30 minutes that he wanted to "go hooooome."

All of that got me thinking a little bit about kids that are displaced from their homes for more serious reasons and longer periods of time. If Logan was an utter wreck because he spent the day visiting friends, what kind of impact does it have on a child who really does lead a nomadic life? Yeah, I know this isn't news. It doesn't take much to upset me on behalf of kids.

There's not really an appropriate transition from that to pictures of our new tile, so I won't try one. The vinyl kitchen floor that has practically sent me into therapy is gone, as is the dated entryway tile (which I kind of liked, in a retro way) and our dining room carpet (which was actually in decent shape, but you can tell the portion of it that was under Logan's high chair when he was learning to eat). We took a minor risk with a color that had some red in it and it paid off, we're really happy with it.

Entryway. The carpet where it meets the tile still needs to be finished and fastened. It's a race between the guys coming back to finish it and Cricket figuring out that it's loose.

View of the kitchen from the dining room.