An Apology Letter

Dear Summer,

I feel awful. You left and I didn't even say goodbye. You know how much I look forward to your visits each year, and I truly didn't mean to neglect you this time. It just happened. This looking for a new house/showing a house/buying a house/packing up a house/selling a house/unpacking a house/selling a house stuff has been so time consuming that I didn't get to spend as much quality time with you as I normally do.

But Summer, trust me, I knew you were around. I felt your warmth on my face as I watched Dylan discover the joy of playing in the sand. (We were the palest family on the beach again this year!)



I watched water droplets from a fountain form a rainbow, as he and I sported cherry moustaches after enjoying some italian ice.



I listened to the infectious sound of laughter when he decided that sliding down a slide was incredibly fun, and often ridiculously funny.




I watched in amazement as he became a social butterfly, and play-dates became a necessity.


I marveled at his strength, as he picked up stones almost as big as his head, to throw in the creek.


I listened as he made animal noises at the farm, and got up close and personal with the "Moo", "Baa", "Bawk, Bawk", "Neigh", and "Quack".


I felt the cool, soothing water as we splashed around in the pool.


We swung, we quacked, we felt the wind in our hair.




Dylan has adjusted to our new house so easily, as if he doesn't miss the old house even a tiny bit. (I sure don't).
I am so happy to be in our new neighborhood, with friendly neighbors and more space, that I know it was worth neglecting you a bit. But, as always, I will be eagerly awaiting your return.

Oh, and Summer? Thanks for the memories.

Stuff

The family I'm a nanny for has been on vacation this week, so I've been off. We are moving, (GLORY, HALLELUJAH!), on Saturday, so I've been trying to pack as much as possible. As a person who has moved my crap from place to place a ridiculous total of 18 times, you would think I would be an old pro by now. Nope, it still stresses me out. I think it is because of the inevitable realization, "I HAVE WAY TOO MUCH STUFF!!!" Why, Why, Why, do people need so much stuff?! I swear that about 1/2 of it we don't even use. Certainly not on a regular basis, anyway. Then there is the stuff you keep "for sentimental value". It sits in a box probably 364 days a year, taking up valuable space and collecting dust waiting for the one day a year you actually pull it out.

Of course, this time is worse, because I am not just moving my junk. This time around I am moving my stuff, Jim's stuff, and Dylan's stuff. The fact that I, a neat freak, organizational queen, lover of getting rid of stuff, has married a does not see dirt, surely this thing will have a use SOMEDAY pack rat of a man might seem amusing to some, but I fail to see the humor. Getting rid of stuff is freeing to me, I feel lighter, more alive, content and at peace. I'm not quite ready to sell all my earthly belongings and go live in a tree, but at times I can see the appeal.

Do you know how hard it is to pack when your kid keeps doing cute stuff?

Like figuring out how to get into his car seat by himself, albeit a bit clumsily. (The voice is my MIL, not mine)

Or like at the lake, when he fell face first into the water, and came up laughing!


Or like when Jim was telling me how he read him a story with a picture of a woman in a babushka, and Jim said, "Look! A Babushka Mama!", and Dylan ran to get the book, saying "Bush Mama, Bush Mama".

Or like when I tried to put 18 month shorts on my 20 month old, saying "I hope these aren't too tight", and he sucked in his belly, screaming "TOO TIGHT!! TOO TIGHT!!"

Or like today, when he shunned the 2-5 year old playground area, to follow a much bigger boy into the 5-12 year old area, where he totally shocked me by climbing the huge stairs, then sliding down the biggest, steepest slide I've ever seen. Sorry I don't have a picture of him actually going down the slide. I was at the bottom praying for a safe return to earth. Here are the steep stairs, though, and him at the top with the much bigger boy behind him. A part of me - totally scared about what my fearless kid has in store for me in the future. Another part of me - totally proud.


Don't get me wrong. This week hasn't been all peaches and cream. There was the little incident about him hitting Jim and I with his plastic bat. Then there was the day that his only goal was to step on my sandal clad toes as hard as he possibly could.
Today, when I tried to block off the kitchen so he wouldn't touch the hot oven, he somehow found a crayon and defiantly colored around the entire area on the hardwood floors. But then, he would do something like this...


and I'm thinking I really need to have next week off, too. I don't want to miss this stuff. THIS is good stuff.


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We Must Move Soon Because I Don't Want To Be On The Ten'O Clock News

So, people keep asking me, "Did you move into your new house yet?" The answer is still no, unfortunately, and when I say unfortunately, I mean "When am I finally going to escape this place, WHEN?!?" Or, maybe something a little more frantic and desperate.

Have you heard the expression "She was so mad she was spitting nails"? That is an expression, isn't it? Well, if it isn't, I'm making it up, because I totally felt that way this morning. Let me once again explain the horror that is our current neighborhood. On one side, we have The Clampetts. They have so many people coming in and out of there, it is like a half way house. The back yard looks like the Walmart toy section threw up, and the front of the house looks like an episode of "Flip That House", before they do the flip. The mailbox is sitting sideways on a step, and the porch often looks like a garage sale is going on. We got their mail by mistake once, and I took it over and just started laughing. The storm door was missing the window part on the top, so they just opened the main door and stuck their hand through the storm door hole to grab the mail out of my hands. The owner's daughter moved in for a while, and brought her druggy boyfriend with her, and we are convinced that he is the one who broke into our house a while back. The daughter was probably the lookout.

On the other side of us, we have a lovely couple. The man has never spoken to us, except to yell at my dad , (who was nice enough to be doing some yard work for us), for trimming what he claims is his bush. The woman informed me shortly after we moved in that the people who owned the house before us stole "those flowers" out of her yard! When Jim and I were trying to get pregnant, for 2 loooonnnggg years, and she asked me "When are you two gonna have a baby?", I answered, "We are trying to have one". Her reply was "Trying? (Snort) We never had to try!" I invited her in for lemonade and we've been best buds ever since. Ahem. The worst part is their dog. When the dog is outside, it barks nonstop. He barks when someone goes by on the road, he barks when he hears us trying to enjoy our back deck, he barks when the wind blows. He does.not.stop. It turns my normally laid back husband into a crazy person mumbling about creative plans for the dog's untimely demise.

I have managed to remain fairly calm about all of this, until this morning. This morning our front door was open so Dylan could look out the storm door at the "Meow". I saw something go past the door out of the corner of my eye. I figured it was one of the handfuls of cats who have heard that my husband rescued the "Meow", and is mooching her food when we aren't looking. Then, I saw them. In the past few weeks, The Clampetts, have acquired a new "puppy" to go along with their other dog whose breed I'm unsure of. The "puppy" is an already large German Shepherd. The other dog and the "puppy" were on our front deck. I was mad immediately. I went to the door to chase the dogs back into their own yard, when they started barking and growling at me, IN MY OWN HOUSE. I went screaming to Jim, "JIM! THE NEIGHBOR'S DOGS ARE ON OUR DECK BARKING AT ME! WHAT IF I WAS OUT THERE WITH DYLAN? IT'S A GERMAN SHEPHERD, FOR GOD'S SAKE, AND THEY DON'T KEEP IT CHAINED! I'M GOING TO FREAK OUT!"

My normally laid back husband's face turned 3 shades of red, and he chased the dogs into their yard, and told the owner, "This cannot happen again. We have a little boy over here". His reply - "Oh, yea, I guess I better get a chain". My normally laid back husband then went to our shed, grabbed a baseball bat, brought it into the kitchen and informed me that I was to use this on the dogs if they ever came near Dylan. Like I said, "Papa Bear".

Don't worry, we were at the new house working all day today. Nothing like a few (insert not nice word of your choice here) neighbors to light a fire under one's butt.

House Hunting 101

Yes, we are hoping to move soon. For anyone else who plans to move in the future, here are a few tips...

1. Start looking at houses, when your own house is not even close to the vicinity of being ready to be put on the market. Make sure walls are falling down, there are leak marks on the walls of the basement, the dust in your husband's workshop has dust on it, the studio has become a junk room/toy factory/exercise equipment mockery, the garage is a tool shed, and each and every available nook and cranny is stuffed as full as humanly possible.

2. Fall madly in love with perusing house sites, such as pittsburghmoves.com, that not only give you all the details of the house, but pretty pictures to look at of the houses.

3. Constantly add more houses to your saved list, so that by the time you get around to seeing them all, they will most definately all be sold.

4. Actually believe that the pictures on those sites truly show you the house as it appears in real life. (At one house we looked at they had conveniently cropped out the huge electrical tower in the side yard! Can you say "kid-friendly"?)

5. Keep thinking about a house after seeing it, and deciding it is not right for you. Get sad when you see that it has been sold. (We saw a house with an amazing studio/office with huge windows looking out into the yard with a pond, and a kitchen that almost brought me to tears and I don't even cook. I am still dreaming about those 2 rooms. I should mention the one car garage was detached, and after spending months at my own home, standing in the cold/snow/rain trying to buckle Dylan in his carseat as the cold air/snow/rain goes down the gap at the back of my pants, I WANT a 2 car integral garage. Oh, and also, that pond came with 3 ducks that had lived in that back yard all their lives. The owner said if we didn't want the ducks she could give them to a farm but they would most likely die. Yea, I already have a cat I don't want, let's add 3 ducks to the mix).

6. When you go to look at houses, be sure to take along a very active toddler who loves to climb up and down stairs, over and over, and over. Your realtor will love toddler wrangling while you stroll through the homes.

Seriously, it might be a while before we move! I honestly believe in the power of writing things down that you want and putting your wishes out there for the universe to sort out, so I'm going to do that here.

-3 or more bedrooms
-at least 2 bathrooms (we only have one now, which creates some "situations" quite often)
-2 car integral garage
-a room for Jim's workshop & tools, that I never have to step foot in
-a room to use as a studio/office where we can house the ridiculous amount of artistic supplies we both have, I can have a desk to write at, pay bills, etc., and there is no other junk in it
-a decent flat yard (fenced in would be awesome) for Dylan to play
-a deck would also be awesome (since we have a front and back deck now, we are spoiled in that area)
- a kitchen that we don't need to remodel (you have no idea how hard that actually is to come by!)
-a neighborhood with nice people, who actually wave hello, know our names, and maybe even become some of our closest friends!
- a good school system (one of the main reasons we are moving)
-a view of the beach (Oh, sorry, that will be the next house)

Wish us luck!