The Ritger Roost: Mexicans in my Bed

We have officially "broken ground or maybe broken roof?" on our upstairs addition. We've been officially under construction for the past 10 days after finally getting our building permit from the city after 10 long weeks waiting. We started drawing up the plans for this project last January, and after our encounters with the GPNA historic committee, the Atlanta Urban Design Commission, and then the City of Atlanta permit office we are finally cleared almost 1 year later to begin construction.

We are learning to exercise patience everyday as there is a steady stream of workers in and out of the house, and nonstop noise. My SIL, Susie introduced us to the concept of type 2 fun many years ago, and this life adventure certainly fits in the category of type 2 fun. Kind of like traveling with kids, not exactly enjoyable while it's happening, but when you look back on it you see that it was worthwhile afterall. If our life wasn't completely chaotic before, it's now in total upheaval-they were laying support beams yesterday and the whole house literally shook for hours it was so loud-we even broke some wine glasses in the cabinets and picture frames on the wall. The kids are getting used to the crew that is here from sun up to sun down 6 days a week-Hank asks every morning when Oscar and Randy are arriving and Lucy waves hi and bye every single time they walk in and out of the house and her new favorite phrase is "what's that noise?". Our yard is completely full of materials, we have a dumpster on the street, no roof (well does a huge blue tarp count?), the power flashes and surges on and off all day, and my favorite-the crew listens to telemundo style music all day that makes our house downstairs sound like we're having a mexican fiesta. Lucy, our music lover, dances along a good bit of the day helping to keep up smiling. This will certainly be one of those life experiences that we look back on, and wonder how the heck we survived.

So how is June handling all the chaos? Well, fine considering she had a near miss when one of the crew came crashing through our bedroom ceiling onto our bed inches from her crib. Don't worry-all is well, and we're already laughing about the whole day. The day was one of the windiest days of the year with huge wind gusts happening all morning that resulted in the tarp being blown off the roof a about 10 in the morning-did I mention the crew didn't show up that day until 1:30? So, I was here with all 3 kids, and with every wind gust we got a showered through the attic and ceiling fan hole with various insulation, acorns, leaves, and halloween candy wrappers. Hank exclaims, " It's like camping in the house!", well not exactly because at least when you camp you have something covering your head. With one particular gust, I see our building plans fly off the roof and through the back yard. I fear losing the plans that took almost a year to get drawn up and stamped by the city, so I take off running after them in the yard-I think I'm carrying a baby or two while this is happening. After a variety of nasty texts to Johnny to the tune of "where the hell is the crew?" "I'm moving out" etc. they finally show up at 1:30 in the afternoon. I breathe a sigh of relief and figure the afternoon should settle down from here.

I finally get June down for a nap in our/her room (because remember we are out of space in the house and Johnny, June, and I all share a room currently). I shut the door, and start working on cleaning up the disaster in the rest of the house. Not 20 minutes later, I hear June start fussing and at the same moment Johnny comes in from work the door to grab his phone charger from our room. Johnny bikes over to the office, so he has his helmet on as he runs into the bedroom to grab his phone charger. I follow behind him to check on June, and when he opens the door there are two crew members in the room, one standing over June's crib-I say "what are they doing in there?" and Johnny looks at me like I know what is happening. I walk into the room to see a huge hole in the ceiling directly above our bed and my baby sprinkled with all sorts of debris. And here comes my husband, with helmet on to protect him from any falling debris running into the room uncertain of what has exactly happened. Pretty sure the crew made fun of him for a while after that.

I pick up the baby, ask what happened, and the guy with minimal English responds with "new guy" June suffered no permanent damage that we know of-maybe she'll need therapy later in life from the trauma, we now have a skylight above our bed, and laugh pretty hard every time we think about the whole situation. While this was playing out, Lucy who is constantly battling for center of attention now, throws a glass vase at one of the workers that shatters all over the floor at his feet, and almost simultaneously the power goes out. Hank, who loves to be captain obvious, continuously points out that there's a huge hole in the ceiling and ponders out loud how we are going to fix that.

That my friends, is the story of mexicans in my bed....we are now on edge with every bang and boom waiting for another hermano to come flying through the ceiling-maybe we should all start wearing our bike helmets in the house.

Enjoy the pictures from the first week of construction.