Write, Mama. Write.

Work phase: Removal!

Thank you for all of that excitement and goodwill!  I'm writing back (slowly)...  Thanks for making us feel like everyone is as thrilled as we are about this new place.  We've had four days in the house and we have (with help from family!):
-made copious plans
-scrubbed the woodwork & walls in the bedrooms
-removed the appliances
-re-keyed the locks
-removed the kitchen counter & sink
-removed kitchen cupboard doors
-removed miles upon miles of green tile (it was on the counters and the floors in the kitchen and playroom...)
-lots o' yard work (it sat empty for awhile)
-removed a bucket's worth of hardware from walls, doors, ceilings, etc.
-removed old blinds, alarms, etc.
-shopped for fix-it supplies galore
-called for bids on various things you'd never want to do yourself (insulation under the first floor, refinishing painted wood floor, etc.)

OK, so listing it out makes me feel better.  Somewhere in there we walked to our town's annual parade and saw Carrie's beautiful exhibit at Art Walk (also, madly: finishing up the big tutorial contest and getting ducks in a row for Women's Clothing Month on the SMS blog).  The house to-do list is freaking me out!  No complaints though; we're so thrilled and excited!  I kept panicking our first work day because I'd lose track of the boy in the house.  I've never lost track of him in our little home because it's so small (there's nowhere to go, nowhere to hide).  He races through the empty rooms in the "new home," has quickly become a tool expert and lends a helping hand whenever it's needed (and often when it isn't).  Yesterday morning wall washing was not a hit but sorting the cupboard hardware was fantastic!

I think if I share before pics before there's an after you'll think we're crazy.  Here are some "durings" though.  I decided to go flash crazy in the house so the "afters" in natural light look way better!

The three of us were alone in the house last night, watching how the light moves through the home in the evening.  We admired the cherry blossoms from the porch and laughed at the grime everywhere.  We're dreaming, and happy.

Big news

We waited over three months to tell anyone about the boy, before we knew he was a boy.  It's an obsessive-compulsive/doesn't make sense thing; while I wait for anything to happen I can tick through the worries without stopping for breath.  I try to notice the sunshine and sing Zippity-Doo-Dah and laugh, but I still worry inside. 

It's not a baby this time, it's a home!  It wasn't nine months but nearly so, and I just couldn't even write about it and leave something in draft because I was sure I'd jinx things.  If you look back on any of my home entries these past few months they're all full of such frustration and deals gone wrong and sadness and every time I vented, someone or many someones said, "It'll happen... It took us a long time but we found the house we were meant to have... Hang in there..."  For the record: YOU WERE RIGHT (and, thank you).  We found a wonderful home.  There are kids in the neighborhood, we can walk to everything, there are nine foot ceilings and big windows, my sister's an eight minute walk away, there's room for a playroom (the type is all cool on that one but I'm saying it toddler-style like: THERE! IS! ROOM! for a... PLAYROOM!!!), a utility room with space for me to sew (DITTO!), old hardwood floors...  Most importantly it just feels like home.  Already. 

We're going to work on it for almost two months.  Yesterday my grandpa was re-keying the locks, Grandma was sweeping the steps, the little guy was helping everywhere, Dad and T were removing carpet, my in-laws were entertaining the boy and sharing in our excitement and Mom was doing a little of everything.  We got the keys Friday evening, and Saturday morning from 3:00-4:30 a.m. it hit me: we bought a house!

Big news.

Toddler boot camp

Things are doggedly unsettled and so, of course, we've simultaneously entered Toddler Boot Camp.  We enjoyed a wonderful parenting class set-up awhile back, where the kiddos played in a delightful space with great supervision and the parents chatted in an attached room.  It was cost-prohibitive but nice.  The disequilibrium discussions there resonated, and I do believe moments of disequilibrium follow you from childhood through life.  Periods of calm rock-a-bye with spans of rockiness, skills and balance are attained and so the push and growth of a new journey begins.  Learning requires a degree of disequilibrium.  This is ever-present at two, and as a parent too.

I wear my teeth down in my sleep, periodically.  I'm supposed to use a bite guard, but lately I feel like I need to wear it all day long as I grit my teeth and steady myself for teachable moment #847 by 9 a.m.  It's all about who controls what, how much, where are the lines, when do they move, who gets to make the choice, is there a choice...  I'm exhausted.  Happy, lazy bath time is a cherry tomato face battle of epic proportions.  Nighttime hugs are withheld, with a smirk.  Two hours into our effort for nap I drudge to my bed and lay there.  It's a throwing, hitting, tantrum-y mess of days and nights here lately.  Out in the world he is the model of excellence in child behavior.  Delightful.  Charming.

I remind myself that this is exactly what he's supposed to do, albeit with more dramatic flair than one might generally muster.  This is exactly what I'm supposed to do too, to help him feel safe.  The other week when he ran to his room disgruntled and slammed the door (never, ever modeled, by the way), the moment should have come with lightening bolts of foreboding.  A teenager would keep the door closed for awhile and zone out to an iPod, but a two-and-a-half year old comes back with determined persistence.  So I grit, and admire the zeal if not the delivery.  Somewhere a thought trips along: the things you find especially annoying and trying are the things within you too. 

We stirred the beginnings of weekly banana bread yesterday and he looked up at me, chef's hat and apron poised just so, and said, "Me lub me Mama" for the very first time ever.  Swoon.  I keep defining the boundaries and he keeps pushing them and it's just beginning.  Maybe what my defined parameters need is something to toss them around a bit, for growth and all.  Toddler Boot Camp is, in any given moment, me doing the push-ups or me barking: "Lights out." 

I want a "frolic through the little daisy-covered meadows"-type of a picnic-y series of days, not a dust billowing, barbed wire, marching sort-of slop thing.  I'm all for a bit of compromise; we could march through the meadow, you know.  I'm ready for him to share a little lub.

Home days

Yesterday morning he said, "We havin' a home day." 

He also said:
Me really, really want a sister. 
Let's make waffles an' muffins an' banana bread an' pancakes an' cookies for breakfast. 
This whole room is me barn; come in me barn.

Sprouting

It's snowing as I write this, April 21st in the Pacific Northwest.  Disturbing.  And yet, things are growing too!  We put bean seeds on a damp paper towel in a Ziploc bag, and taped them to the window about a week and a half ago.  It's been such fun to see them change every day, and now we'll plant them in cups.  There have been some nice gardening/spring book lists out there lately, with most of our favorites mentioned numerous times.  With this "project" we really enjoyed One Bean by Rockwell, illustrated by Halsey.  Zinnia's Flower Garden by Wellington was a fun one too.

Other spring/planting favorites:
Roots, Shoots, Buckets & Boots by Lovejoy
Spring is Here by Lenski (so sweet, just like all of her books)
Growing Vegetable Soup by Ehlert

On our library list:
A Seed is Sleepy by Aston

Linguistic explorations, v2.5

He's just so stinkin' cute, I say under my breath to my mom and sister.

Off on the other side of the living room he startles a bit, glances up, looks a little thrown and mutters: Sometime me get a little, little poopy but sometime me NOT poopy.  No... 

I apologize after a pause... Oh, honey, I'm sorry.  'Stinkin' cute' is another way of saying really, really cute.  I didn't mean you're a stinky boy.

---
I'm off to run errands in the evening and Fun Time! With Daddy! Starts as soon as I LEAVE! so he says: Go, Mama!

We have the same ol' discussion at length about how even if you want someone to go it's not nice to tell them to Go! so you have to just wait, or say 'Bye, bye' in a nice way because otherwise it might hurt their feelings, yadda, yadda, tweedleedum, yadda...

So he says: Go now PLEASE, Mama.  And I do.

---
I love this moment in time before "I" and "my."  It's me monkey, me gib you a hug, me want it, me a big, big, big boy and I think: You are so stinkin' cute.

At least we had that weekend

Time is wisps of spider threads as of late, attacking our hair as we walk or flying off our shoulders with one tenuous attachment.  The last post was sitting in draft for four days as we made our way through tedious house details and a sudden, scary case of the flu or food poisoning (not due to the free burrito, by the way, just in case it crossed your mind!) or some such dread-evil thing.  I figure it's important to document the beauty and the BIG because snow is in the forecast and times they are a changing. 

Last night, completely spent, sitting in bed trying to decompress a little and let sleep in, I decided I wasn't quite tough enough yet on the mothering front.  I'm sure it must get easier, in some ways, to see your little one like that.  Nothing makes me feel quite as vulnerable to the world as illness in my boy.  I'm a warm washcloth comforting, Laundry Queen by day, able to conquer dishes and cuddle in what I hope is just the right way.  When it's over and he's tucked in safely (just the right color and temperature) I am a quivering, sobbing, jellyfish of a mess.  There you have it.  Hopefully we can move on to our latest, greatest book finds, the bean seeds on our window and other joyful, preschooler/Mama minutia quite soon. 

Last weekend

It was pretty much, almost, a truly glorious weekend with just the right little bits of friends, family and a whole lot of sunshine.  It was outside with iced coffee and ice cream sandwiches-sunshine.  Work/play in the yard-sunshine.  First picnic dinner, first trip of the season to the farmer's market, scrub the lawn furniture, plant some seeds-sunshine.  Forget about the long, rainy, flu days o' winter.  Sunshine.

Now the NY Times is mysteriously back and free.  A Dalai Lama ticket popped up out of the blue.  Taxes are done.  It's sandal time.  Sunshine.

There was a lazy, warm, evening moment with the sun low on the horizon.  A favorite, free (big fan o' free, you know) burrito filled me as I sat on the Temple of Justice steps.  My boys meandered up the Capitol steps across the divide, avoiding a family photography session with big lenses and family members popping out on alternate sides ('70s family band style).  My family, my two, plopped down at the top offset by black doors seven two year olds high.  Sunglasses on.  Their small waves of hello triangulated with the moon high above flags of state and country.  Everything was big and monumental: justice, stone, space, debate, blooms everywhere, and my boy the biggest of all.   

Dinosaur home

Terrarium + Sculpey fossils

The latest extinction theory in our household involves overpopulation (this little Ball jar is tiny!) but the "fossils" will remain and multiply (someone thinks it would be fun to dig for them in the sandbox).

Kinda muddy

We've been playing in the mud.  We get all ready to go outside when there's a sun break, and then we stare out at the pouring rain in our coats and boots.  Repeat.  Repeat.  If we're lucky we catch a break with light sprinkles and the right apparel timed just so, we run outside and we dig, dig, dig.  Well, technically, one of us digs and one of us clicks. 

I'm trying to be really, really nice to the computer because it has (shhh!) motherboard issues.  It was a teeny bit of a crisis but I wasn't totally hysterical because we'd recently backed up all of our thousands of photos of the boy (friendly hint to avoid hysteria: back up your photos ASAP).  Motherboard issues make me think of a combo Pigs in Space and Swedish Chef scene with everyone tossing my poor little laptop around.  That's just me though.

Computerless, I was not thrilled with the untethered, "I have a free moment whatever shall I do without my lovely connection to the outside world" feelings.  Not proud about that.  I just realized I've been here a year, and I really like it.  I continue to be surprised at how important it feels to carve out a small place here for me.  I like throwing things out there and I like browsing around and I love blowing off housework to seek a little inspiration.  I really love the conversational aspect of comments and commenting but I do think, for just a little bit, I should try to limit "reliance" on the internet.  Does that make any sense to anybody?  Anyhow.  Quiet it is for a bit, with comments off (though email's still there).

Random:
-I like this great Grown-up Songs for All Ages list via Cookie via the completely wonderful crooked house again.
-Love the elaboration on Sculpey fun.
-Lately we've: sorted clothes, baked loads of banana bread, sold stuff via Craigslist and dreamed about a new house.