After a year-long venture of house-hunting, house-selling, house-buying, house-moving, and finally settling in, there is much to say. So much to say that there is no good place to start, not one finite point at which the story picks up and continues. So instead of trying to play catch-up, I will dust off this keyboard and start with today. Today I am sitting in my new-to-me kitchen in my 109 year old house, looking out the bank of windows that frame our kitchen's banquette, watching the snow come down in big, puffy flakes that blanket the yard, the swingset, and the pool beyond.
I am loving this new house. It is old, and the wear shows in many places - 109 years builds up a good amount of wear! There are dings in the trim and patches in the hardwood floors, and ancient windows that no longer open and shut. But there is goodness, too, in the littlest of details here, there, and everywhere. I appreciate the stamped door hinges, the rounded wall in the upstairs hall, the canning shelves in backmost basement room, the scrolled wood on the fireplace...so many things are good that I have gotten used to the things that aren't so good. This kitchen is cold, both in temperature and aesthetics, but it has a good deal of space and we can make do until we have the money to make it our own - I know that one day it will be the coziest spot in our home. Until then, I have gotten used to putting on a sweatshirt when I want to linger here and it seems fitting that the chilliest room in our house is also where the teakettle is put to good and frequent use. This is my favorite place to sit in the late afternoons; while the sun splashes across the table I knit and watch Harry and Emma play outside with our dogs.
Speaking of dogs, while writing this I have had to get up at least ten times to rescue an odd shoe, slipper or glove from the jaws of the monster puppy, our newest addition to the family. New because we lost our beloved Riley during the holidays to cancer, and our house just seemed wrong without two dogs. So Ginger is here now and she is as spicy and naughty as the name suggests. We adore her and find her impossible in equal turns; our plan is to weather this first year of her life as well as possible until she settles in and becomes the good dog we know she will be. But Puppyhood! Oh my, I had forgotten how tough you can be!
Emma has a static cling problem. Winters here are dry, dry, dry, and her hair is constantly crackling. It is a static mess that clings to her face but she refuses to tie it back. It drives me a little crazy, the way it is constantly both stuck to her face and aflight in a perfect halo of wildness around her head and I find myself trying to tuck it behind her ears lately, which she hates, in the same way that I hated it as a child when my mother tried to tuck my own static-challenged locks behind my ears. I guess some things never change. She has had a growth spurt in the last month and the jeans I just bought are already looking short. Pre-school has brought about so many changes in her demeanor, a bloom of girl child that amazes us and a blight of girl attitude that makes us inwardly cringe, knowing that the teenage years will make this seem pale in comparison. She has definitive ideas about fashion, spends hours a day on artwork, and will be glad to dance it out in the kitchen with you as long as you agree to play some of her self-professed favorite band: Weezer. She talks with her hands with big, expressive gestures that make us giggle. She is funny, wildly funny, and we simply cannot imagine what life would be like without her.
I am recently the mother of a five year old, the fact of which nearly blows my mind. I have moments when I can perfectly picture Harry as a young adult - a certain glance, or the way he stands just so, makes me see him as he promises to be one day. At other times he is very much the baby boy I met in an airport hallway, the one who sprung me, ready or not, into motherhood. We registered him for kindergarten two weeks ago. Kindergarten! Holy cow, time flies by and they grow and suddenly we're faced with the impending doom of homework. I feel, quite acutely, the passing of time with him and I wonder if he feels it, too. He is reading, not just sounding out words but knowing them at first sight and getting ahead of me in books. He reads the newspaper headlines while we eat breakfast, the words on billboards while we drive, and he has an insatiable appetite for books, even sleeping with them tucked beneath his pillow. He plows through life, setting the standard and leading the way for his sister to follow, a task that is both a blessing and a burden on his little shoulders. He is a great, great boy, still moving ahead with that force that has always been his.
Brendan is in the basement working out. (Hours have passed since I first started this post...the kids are in bed, or should be, and night has fallen outside of my kitchen windows. It is still snowing, but softly now; it is no longer in such a hurry to accumulate.) We had to wedge his univeral weight set into the first room on the basement and it just barely fit at all. The treadmill lives in the kitchen now, a severe lack of headroom in the basement making running at treadmill height impossible for him. He has been such a good sport about this. He gave up a lot in this move, man-room wise, but he has weathered it in good spirits and we are trying to find ways to accomodate the things that don't seem to fit. People did not think about home gyms in 1901, I suppose. When he is done working out we'll watch LOST in high definition on his new flat screen, and suddenly it won't seem so bad that he had to work out crammed into that basement.
I have to end this post and insist that a certain five year old go to sleep now, despite his seeming need to stand at the window and watch the snow come down. He is beyond excited with tomorrow's potential for sledding in Crandall Park, but if he doesn't get some sleep he'll be too tired to climb back up the hill when his run is done.
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