Four

She isn’t a baby anymore.  She is smart and funny, capable already of collapsing into pre-teen giggles that leave her gasping for breath and turning bright red; a wickedly contagious brand of laughter that is hers alone. 

Don’t be fooled by photographs – this girl is nobody’s princess.  In their make-believe play she is the bad guy, or the hero, or the warrior, never the damsel in distress.  She is strong.

She knows who she is and what she is capable of, and she is not afraid to tell anyone that she can do something all by herself.  And boy, does she like a good challenge.  Just tell her she is too little to attempt something, just try convincing her that she can’t quite swim all the way around the pool yet and she will prove you wrong.  She looks fear in the face and carries on with determination and will.  She sees her older brother’s abilities as records to be beaten.  She can whoop all of us at quite a few board games.

But she is also soft.  She still needs those cuddly moments, still needs to know that she will always be our baby even when she is all grown up.  She is compassionate and empathetic, sweet at just the right times.  She knows her story and likes to hear it, to see the pictures that form a sketch of her beginnings.  And she knows where she is going: currently her life goals include being a mommy, an artist, and an animal trainer (because “I am am much better at teaching animals than you are, Mommy”).  And I have no doubt that she can do all of those things, and more, if she puts her mind to it.

Right now she is our Em, our sweet, funny, brilliant little-big girl.  She is, quite perfectly, four.

Growing Pains

He lost his first tooth last week and he starts Kindergarten next week.

She turned four last week and begins Pre-K next week.
My heart is doing all sorts of weird things this summer…aching, swelling with joy and pride, and longing for a baby that I can’t have.  One minute I am entirely sad that their earliest childhood days are past us, that so soon they will be on to bigger adventures and huge chunks of their lives will be spent with people we really don’t know. Sometimes I am excited at the prospect of having ten hours per week that are really and truly my own, but then that excitement gets tempered by the thought of what I will do with that time.  Who the heck am I, without them?  I am eager to see my children learn and grow, so happy to know that they each have a keen appetite for new ideas and experiences.  And I’m not going to lie and say that it won’t be somewhat of a huge relief to have someone else be the entertainment committee for part of the day because for all of its inherent joys and benefits and greatness, stay-at-home parenthood is entirely exhausting.  But.   But I will miss them like crazy and the feeling of losing them, even for this little while, makes me feel dizzy.
And yes, I will say it out loud: I am having baby pangs, strong ones, pangs like I had when we were first trying to conceive.  My arms ache, baby showers stink again, and I know that if there was a baby available I could pull together a nursery, clothes, and everything else we need in a matter of hours.  I have a mental checklist of where everything is and in which order it should be put in place, according to importance and necessity.  Do I think that these pangs are part side-effect of my big kids going to school?  Yes, but only in part.  I have had an overwhelming feeling of someone being missing from our family for awhile now.  It’s a tough thing, this knowledge, especially when the other half of my marriage (my better half?) doesn’t agree.  So maybe we’re done, but my heart disagrees and I don’t know how to feel.
My mind is trying to get it all under control, trying to remember that this is the natural progression of events in a life, that babies grow up and go off to school and mothers go back to work.  And we don’t get everything we want.  Life carries on and on, whether we want to hold it still or not. 
But man, how I want to hold it still. 

Overheard: Family Room

They have called 911 several times, each time exclaiming with increased urgency that the babies are coming and they don't know what to do.  They seem scared.  Come quickly! they yell, There isn't much time! 

The youngest throws the toy phone to the floor in disgust when she gets the prerecorded message: Do you want to play?  She doesn't want to play, she yells, she wants the amby-lens to come and save the baby kitties who are having trouble being born.  She calls again and is put on hold, I can hear the muzak while she impatiently taps her foot.  The oldest tells the mama stuffed-cat to push and take short little breaths.  After much loving guidance and stern support the kittens are born, the mama lives, and the family room pet-shop/veterinary hospital is returned to order.  All is well in the universe once again.

Oh, how our afternoon playtime has evolved!

Wanted: Fairy Godmother

Some days, living in an old house, I wish I wish I wish I had a magic wand. Or a great deal of money-that would work, too. I would love it if we could be the people who moved in and instantly got to work gutting the kitchen, putting up a pretty new privacy fence, installing the beautiful landscaping that I can so clearly picture in my mind, putting in windows that actually open and close, building a lovely pergola for a shade room behind the garage, and completely starting over with each bathroom. Brendan and I know both know how this house should be, should look, should function. Getting from point A to point B on the roadmap to awesome house is not as easy as one would hope.

What we do have is love, determination, and a lot of sweat equity. We are our own free labor and we have learned over the years (this is our fourth house, after all) that we can learn to do anything. We also have an acute appreciation for the age and character of our home; we want to keep all of the quirky details that make it cool while updating the "improvements" that others made over the years, many of which simply do not do the house justice.

I have been working on the kitchen for a few weeks now. We replaced hardware on the cabinetry earlier in the spring and that alone made an incredible difference in the overall appeal of the room. Now I am painting the walls and trim, covering up the blue and gold that predominated the room and reminded me of a high school pep rally (go Spartans!). It has not been easy, nor fun, but the results are a soothing reminder of what will one day be the "heart" of our home. We're using Behr's Green Tea for the walls and Ultra Pure White for the trim, doors, and banquette.

While the room is going to feel a whole lot better just with paint, we're also saving for new appliances and lighting. Have we mentioned our stove? It's an old school JennAire with a grill on one side and two electric burners on the other, and no hope of buying more burners because it is so old. We plan our meals around how many pots it will take to cook each dish...I am serious. The oven door doesn't close so when we want to bake something we have to jam an old wrapping paper tube between it and the opposing cabinetry. Have we mentioned our fridge? It's a reasonable appliance, though oversized for the allotted space such that the trim was ripped off so it could be shoved into position. It is a double door monstrosity that emits the lovely aroma of cigarette smoke when the door is opened and sports the largest rust spot I have ever seen on an indoor appliance.

We make it work. We have dinner parties and laugh about the state of our kitchen; we live, eat, breathe, dance, and play in this room and it works, whether it looks pretty or not. And though I wish we had that magic wand, and often, I still know beyond a doubt that the true heart of our home lies not within cabinetry and walls, but within the family that lives together beneath this old slate roof.

One of the great things about living here is convenience. The Memorial Day parade was last week. We only had to walk a few houses away to see it!

Making some improvements a little at a time. Some touch up paint and the garage will be great.

Seven Months

I think it takes a year.

One whole year in any new place is about the length of time it takes to feel settled, to feel as though you are a part of place, rather than a visitor just occupying a space. We have been here nearly seven months and I am starting , just now, to feel the twinges of belonging, of ownership, of a sense of "this is my home". It feels good, as if something really, really great is just around the corner and all of this hard work we have been setting forth to do will be so very worth it in the future.

I believe that you must witness the change of all four seasons in a place before it can feel like home. You have to know where the day lilies push through the soil in order to know where to expect them the next spring. You have to know the order in which the fruit trees will bloom and you have to know when the maple trees will drop their spring flowers so that you don't open the pool too soon. You have to dig your bare hands into the soil, pulling out years' worth of garbage left behind by previous owners, before you feel the sense of ownership that allows you to scold the schoolboy who shamelessly litters on your front lawn right in front of you. "This is my front yard, not your garbage can!" you will yell, feeling a sense of pride and indignance that has not been there before.

In five months' time I expect to be there, all the way there. Right now we are building the attachments and relationships with neighbors, our house, and our community, that will help make this place really and truly our home. Every day that we spend working around the house and the yard, walking to the library and school and work, and chatting with our own series of Wilsons* over the top of the fence, bring us closer to home.

*Please tell me you get this reference! From the t.v. show Home Improvement...