July 28, 2015

Before Bed


I rarely bathe my kids. It might be laziness or a pseudo-hippie affection for funk (my own showering schedule is a little suspect!), but that window between dinner and bedtime is always such a chore that a bath is the last thing on my list. Instead, I fill that hour by getting outside. In the past we've loved walks around the block, collecting rocks and leaves, but now that we have a newly fenced tiny little yard of our very own, I can simply turn them loose. What a revelation! It may not be the fields and streams and forests of my own childhood adventures, but a hose bib and a few square feet of turf is plenty to save all our sanity at the end of a long day.

P.S. I know it's crazy how big these kids are. Where did my babies go?!

July 21, 2015

A New House


We are still deep in boxes and far from settled, but our new house is starting to feel like home. It's been hot, crazy heat and humidity and we have abandoned the single air conditioning unit that we used to keep in the kids' room. I think it must be some kind of New Englander's self-torture, but I am always convinced that we have all the more appreciation for the shift in seasons after suffering through the extreme winters and heat waves. Our big activity today was an afternoon bath brimming with over-sized ice cubes, we are ready for a cool front.

James and I work on the house and unpacking in every free moment, and I sometimes wonder what the kids will remember about this time. I think they are enjoying it, or they might recount in future therapy sessions the time they were forced to stay up late because mama was hacking apart a crib mattress, cutting out six inches from the width, and sewing it all back together again in the name of fitting a vintage 'big girl bed'. I have such a clear vision for every room, and I thought I was being very practical and time and budget conscious with my plans... but it's a lot. Someday we will have face plates on our light switches and the cardboard will vanish, but it's definitely going to take more time than I'd hoped.

However disorganized, I'm proud and excited by what we've done so far. We plan to stay put in this home for the long haul, and it's pretty surreal to bond with a place with that kind of commitment in mind.

Also, I picked up my camera! Thrilling! A few more 'smiley' kid faces from tonight to follow, and hopefully a sign of things to come.

July 10, 2015

Then and Now


I finally located the box that contained my computer, and this is what I found. Snapshots from three weeks ago, or more. No evidence of boxes piled high or giant dust bunnies unearthed in previously hidden corners or beloved stenciled walls painted into oblivion. Moving has been rough, in no small part due to various travel and work commitments that ruthlessly stole big chunks of our precious time. We made some choices that probably weren't wise, but they are behind us... and so is our long loved apartment that I documented so thoroughly here. It's painful to look back at pictures of a 'home' that no longer exists when we haven't yet had the time to establish our new house as any home. We are still in boxes, paint on the walls and locked Pinterest boards holding the promise of a really lovely place for our family... we just aren't there yet.

The shift has been tough on the kids, who both seem to be every bit the 'nesters' that their mother is. We need the safety of a home base to bolster daily adventures in the wide open world, and we've all felt fragile and cranky... and like watching old Mr. Rogers episodes for generous blocks of the day. 

James has been burning the candle at both ends, but aside from some serious sleep deprivation, is far more pragmatic in his attitude towards the move. 'Nothing is how I want it to be', I say... 'We just moved', he says... 'I just want it to look like a real house', I say... 'I give us 'till September', he says... 'September?!? No way am I living like this until September! Get your drill and meet me upstairs!', I say... 'I'll give you an hour', he says... and that is pretty much a transcript of us at 10PM every weeknight for the last two weeks. I'm hoping to snag his attention for a whole week-end in the near future, and really get some shiz done!

Pictures will come. I thought I would want to document the transition, but I'm finding that I need the chaos to be slightly more reigned in before I can relax enough to want to lay eyes on my camera. I can't bring myself to go back to our old place, it's not how I want to remember it... and I am feeling similarly about the pile of boxes that fill my current living space. If I don't take a picture, in a week they will be gone, and then they never existed. Some transformations just don't need a record.

I miss this journal a lot, miss the archive of the kids growing... Roo is a whole different creature, so spunky and verbal and very deserving of a dedicated blog post. Here's hoping, my virtual friends!