I Am A Californian

We made the big leap and E & I have moved out to California to be with T. Our UT house is now listed with a realtor, our CA house still isn't finished and won't be for another month, but we're enjoying being together again. I'm still adjusting to living somewhere new and all that entails. It seems that for every bit of excitement and adventure there's an equal measure of uncertainty and loneliness. A little bit of yin and yang for the whole thing.

Good:

• Quality stores and restaurants (including the amazing Sacramento tapas restaurant T took me to last Saturday *sigh*)
• Warmth. It's over 80 today and I'm wearing capris and a t shirt.
• Living in the mountains of Northern CA that remind me of my home state, OR
• T.
  

Not So Good:

• Printing a Google map before I go anywhere. And I do mean anywhere. I'm so lost.
• Missing my UT family.
  
• Not having any friends for me or E.
  
• A weird, directionless feeling I have while we wait to really settle in CA.

Everything seems to get better with time. Soon I'll be giving out directions to other people, taking E to a play date and sewing curtains for our home. I don't expect myself to get over missing my family. I know myself well enough to know that will never happen. But, luckily, we live close to airport and major highways and train stations and a little distance isn't an insurmountable obstacle. I think right now I just need time to get used to everything that so... new.

It Takes Two

After four weeks apart, T flew home this weekend and we got to feel like a normal, or as close to normal as we've ever been, family for two days! It was marvelously, gloriously euphoric and now I'm going through withdrawals again. Kind of unfortunate considering I'd just gotten to the point that I thought, "Actually, I can handle this. It's a little tough, but we're hacking it well."

Sigh.

Over the weekend, the little man absolutely couldn't soak in enough Daddy-time. He was overjoyed to be with his idol. I realized how different it is when T is here verses when he's gone and starting compiling a mental list. It looked like this:

1. The house is messier. I'm not sure if it's because I'm more likely to be playing or relaxing than picking up, or if it's because T is like a mild Tasmanian devil, but I couldn't stay on top of it.
   
2. The leftovers were eaten. Finally. I always thought I liked leftovers until he who usually consumes the leftovers left and now they sit in the fridge for....ev......er.
3. E seemed much happier and the mild diarrhea he's had since T left finally ceased. Is he a Bean or what?
   
4. I realized how much E needs both me and T. Further details provided below.
   

Exhibit A
Sunday, T broke out the playdoh for E, and I went downstairs to load some pictures on the computer. When I came back up I noticed all the playdoh was out on the table and E was really having a ball. E exclaimed, "Mama, I made a pizza!" When I looked down I saw him creating this beauty:
Amazingly creative! He pointed out the "pizza", "sauce", and "cheese" and I marveled at the fun he was having. When I break out the playdoh with E I let him pick three colors at a time. I started doing this when he was little so I could make sure not to much went in his mouth, and I could limit the mess. I never thought to let E have free reign with all the playdoh. I simply didn't. And look at what he was able to do!

"Cooking" the pizza

Exhibit B
The boys were in E's room playing with the door shut and I heard T say, "The tiger is flying over....." while making sound effects and E squeeled and said, "You're funny, Daddy." You want to know what I say when we play with safari toys? Usually something informative and dull like, "I'm a tiger. I prowl in the jungle looking for prey. Rrrroar!!" My tigers don't fly. I never even thought of making my tiger fly, unless he were to be in a cage in a cargo airplane.

In summary, I'm boring. Yikes! I kept thinking about how lucky E is that he has both T and me. If he had only me, he'd be anal and process minded. If he had only T, he'd be crazy and, most likely, messy. With both of us, hopefully he'll fall somewhere in the middle as a normal, functionally human. All in all, it made me reflect on the complimentary differences a father and mother bring to a child and just how much I love and need T.

Home For Sale

Within the next 24 hours our house will officially be for sale and it's a very bittersweet experience for me. Three years ago when we first walked in I knew in my heart that we were supposed to live here. Everybody else saw an abandoned, creepy, spider-inhabited, major fixer-upper, but I had vision, or perhaps a hallucination, of what it could be. T trusted me and we took the plunge.

Pictures of our house when we bought it.

Street view

Living room/sitting room before we framed in E's bedroom

The kitchen and all it's beautiful wallpaper

The bathroom. Lovely.

Stairwell after we removed wallpaper. Yes, it looked worse than this.

Basement.

Steaming and scraping wallpaper. Note all the replastering we needed to do after.

Three years later and everything is done. And we're selling. It's a bitter experience because I feel like a large part of our family is invested in this house. Aside from the blood, sweat, tears, and money we poured into it, it's been our first home. We brought our first baby, E, home here. We struggled to finish school here. We have great memories of time spent together and with friends and family within these walls. It's sad to leave all that.

It's sweet because we can sell this home to a deserving family and know that all the work is done and it's done right. For crying out loud, we replastered the walls! When I think of some good woman being able to cook for her family in our kitchen it pleases me. She'll love the kitchen. They'll have a wonderful home to live in from the get go and that is more satisfying than I'd ever dreamed it would be. In truth, last summer when we began to realize that we wouldn't live here forever I really didn't want to finish any more house projects. But then I imagined the family that would own our home next, I actually imagined it would be someone who reads this blog and that I VT, and I thought, "Okay, I'll finish the house for her, because she's darling and I adore her." Weird motivation, huh? But it worked for me.

Tomorrow the hunt for the family that owns this home next begins. We're trying to sell it ourselves and I'm scared, sad, excited, and nervous. Our appraisal came in on Friday and has helped us tremondously to find a price that's fair to the next home owners and us. I created a blog for our house that we're using to help advertise and I invite you to visit it and see how much our house has improved. You'll find it at:

http://brighamcityhome.blogspot.com

Please don't leave personal comments there, unless you want to buy the house ;o), but enjoy the virtual open house of sorts. Let the games begin!

Breaking an Unwritten Rule

Do you have any rules or rituals that you innately follow? Maybe you always tap your toothbrush three times after you brush. Maybe you readjust your mirrors every time you get in the car. Maybe you lock the door twice before you leave home. I've realized that silent, internal rules govern a lot of what I do. I'll be the first to admit that I like structure. We've had to be pretty structured throughout our whole marriage in order "to do" what needed to be "to done". I like to wake up, eat, get E napping, make dinner, and exercise at roughly the same time every day. Easy peesy rice and cheesy, right?

Well, today after dinner I started thinking about the errands I needed to run tomorrow. Then I realized I also had other things to do tomorrow morning and lamented that I couldn't run my errands tonight. Wait. Why couldn't I run my errands tonight? I usually try to get all the home front business taken care of in the morning so we can have uninterrupted family time in the evening, but T's not here. Our mornings have the same cast as our evenings: Me and E and the puppy.

So we broke the unwritten rule and ran our errands tonight. It was different and fun. (I know what you're thinking and, yes, I am quite the rebel.) Here's the play-by-play.

One of the benefits of living where we do is that we're about 5 min. from awesome farmers' markets. All summer long farmers bring they tasty wares to seasonal stands set-up along Highway 89 and peddle their goods to hungry citizens like myself. We have one particular stand we frequent and refer to as the "Vegetable Farm". Things there are ridiculously cheap: Green, red, orange, and purple peppers 2/$1, green and yellow zucchini 10/$1, butternut and acorn squash $1, and today, pie pumpkins for $0.98.

E selecting his pumpkin.

Pumpkin love.
These ingenuous carts tote kids and vegetables throughout the stand.
E looks forward to the ride as much as he does the vegetables.

E bagging our Tuscan gourmet cantaloupe. (2/$1)

E had a little meltdown at the vegetable farm when fiberglass strands from a pole viciously attacked his finger. I told him he was so very brave and if he could keep being brave, perhaps we would get something for him at the store. Then we found these darling pajamas. I told him they were his treat, but I honestly bought them for myself. They have a little raccoon on the front with "Rascal" embroidered beneath it. If they'd had it in my size I would have bought a pair for myself. I just don't think I can squeeze into a 5T...

Talking to Daddy and trying to take a picture.

E Update

Recently my posts have been a lot of updates on our family's living and career situation. Since it's been so consuming it seemed blog worthy and appropriate. A couple days ago I started to download the pictures from our camera onto our computer and realized that in the last month I've taken three pictures of E. Three. I can't even lie and say that they're really wonderful pictures of him either. They're pictures I took of E working in the yard with T, only I took them from 30 feet away ... and neither of them turned around ... and they're horribly out of focus.

This happened one other time in the history of E's life, but it was when our camera broke and we were saving money to buy a new one. I had a legitimate excuse that time. I can just see me explaining the second gap in E's photo books to him...

"Well, sweetie, it was a really busy time and mommy was
so preoccupied that I didn't remember you
to take pictures of you. But I still fed you really disgusting
food like Quizno's tuna sandwiches and
bathed you at least once every three to four days."

To begin making up for my gross negligence I took a plethora of pictures of him on Sunday and am including some of the best.

Talking to Daddy. I just adore this pose.

You might guess that this is E trying to say "I love you" in ASL, but you would be wrong. To find out what he's really doing you have to look at the picture below.

That's right, he's teasing me with his boogers. He thinks it's hilarious to pick his nose and then waggle his finger in my face, or worse, eat it. I have no idea what to do about this recently acquired display of fine etiquette. I think he knows that no matter how cool I play it, deep down it makes me squirm.

Slurping down a juicy peach. I love this picture because it showcases his rich, chocolaty eyes.

Recent E Developments & Funnies:

• E has developed a fetish with my hair. He can't stand my hair being up in a ponytail. I have no idea where this came from, but if I put my hair up he'll beg and plead, "Put your hair down. Please."
  
• Whenever E "pretend cooks" he tells me that he's cooking zucchini. Ironic, since he still hates the texture of zucchini and will scarcely look at it when I serve it.
• Today he asked if me he could, "Play you some songs, Mommy." while I did the lunch dishes. About five minutes later he returned to the kitchen and said, "Mommy, I spilled. I spilled on the piano." I asked him what spilled and he didn't answer but said, "Come help clean up." He turned around to lead the way and I realized he was walking like he just got off a horse and his pant legs were soaking. That's right. He peed all over the piano bench! I died laughing! I guess he was so caught up in his melodies that he didn't hear mother nature singing her little song.
• He has become really good at sharing. I thought he was doing a good job but saw true evidence of it when T asked for a piece of dessert that E was about to eat and E immediately handed it over to him. I wouldn't even do that. Seriously.
  
• He finally jumps! Wahoo!