Was there even life before technology?

Posted on July 26, 2007 by Natalie

Most people? Yeah, when they decide to sell their current house and buy a new one, they might not choose to go on vacation the very next day. Apparently, we are not most people. Instead, the moment both of the counter-offers were accepted and signed – before the ink was even dry – we were headed south on 101. Not to return for another 11 days. That’s how we do it.

Thusly, we have not ever been too far from a computer, and I have actually managed to keep my cell phone not only charged, but within earshot. Thank the heavens for technology. And lots of it. At the rate we are going, we could feasibly close escrow on our new house before we even got home (even though we have chosen not to). Meanwhile, we have been droning on and on (and on) to anyone who will listen about remodeling and landscaping and miscellaneous repairs. Everyone has had to listen us endlessly discuss the finer details of flooring, windows and the differences between a cess pool and a septic system (we were originally told it was the first, but it turns out to actually be the latter). Yes, everyone, we are the kind of people that, if you see us coming, you should probably run. Run quickly.

Aside from the house ramblings, we are actually doing a bit of vacationing. And by vacationing, I mean leaving our children with whomever will take them so we can do luxurious things like shop, sleep in and ignore their whiny tantrums. Stella is wowing all of us with her aquatic skills (she is practically swimming!), and Porter is showing everyone how his adorable cuteness is only matched by his insanely short temper. And tenacity. And ability to bend metal objects with sheer will alone. But you know, all in a really cute way.

When he is not busy attending to whatever the heck he damn well pleases, he is dragging people around by their index finger. Get me this. Get me that. You can see the look of exasperation in his eyes when you just aren’t getting what Uhn, Ma Gaaaaaa! means. Come on people, get with the program, here!

You’ll notice I haven’t made even one whiny complaint about oppressive heat yet. Mostly, it is because there has been some crazy system following us at each stop that changes the aforementioned oppressive heat from hot to humid, which somehow makes it mildly more tolerable. Not to say we haven’t taken every available opportunity to float in the pool like hippos. Because we have. A lot.

Although we are rounding out our trip, and will be home in the next few days, we have continued to get inquisitive calls and emails in regards to our current housing situation. I thought I’d check in and let you all know how things were going. All inspections are completed (on both houses) and it is looking more and more like this is gonna happen. (Although, I still feel a little awkward saying as much.) If things continue on at their current pace it won’t be much longer until you’ll begin to see a lot of photos of a certain yellow house.

Sunscreen Required

Posted on July 19, 2007 by Natalie

Porter mostly sticks to the steps and trolls for pool toys to chew on…

Stella, on the other hand, has been working on the finer points of her cannonball…

CANNONBALLLLLLL!

Lyma

Posted on July 10, 2007 by Natalie

This story is about a lemon. A store-bought, medium-sized lemon. A lemon that somehow, became Stella’s first iteration of an imaginary friend. And this lemon’s name: Lyma.

This past week Stella began her first official round of swim lessons. Although she has shown that when it comes to horsing around in the pool she has the ability to be fairly adventurous, she has also set some very clear boundaries: no face in the water, no activities that might force her to inadvertently put her face in the water. Simple as that. Enter, swim lessons.

As it turns out, the lessons have been insanely successful. And, in no small part because of her new bath-time swim buddy, Lyma. The best I can tell, she happened by the fruit bowl one night and decided she wanted to take a lemon in the bathtub with her to help her practice her new swim moves. So here I am, sitting at the dining room table balancing the checkbook, and I hear her in the bathtub, talking to Lyma as though she were a living, breathing human:

“Okay Lyma, now you go under. Then I’ll take another turn.”
“Oh Lyma, I love you.”
“Hey Daddy, look at how good Lyma is at swimming.”
“Now it’s Lyma’s turn to have her hair washed.”
“Mommy, can Lyma sleep with me tonight?”

A lemon. My child formed an emotional attachment to a lemon.

This went on for three days. We negotiated the sleeping arrangements such that Lyma slept in a clear acrylic cup on the nightstand next to her bed. You can imagine that after rigorous manhandling in hot soapy bathwater, along with daily tag-alongs at playtime, Lyma’s structural integrity began to erode at an increasingly rapid pace. She became softer and softer, and I was beginning to dread the inevitability that Lyma was going to explode and – to Stella’s horror – ooze her lemony innards all over the floor. This was a close friend, after all. Practically a member of the family.

This is where an odd situation became horribly difficult. It became one of those parenting crossroads that I was completely ill-equipped to handle. Death. Dying. The loss of a loved one. We had to break the news that Lyma, our daughter’s new pet lemon, had to go to that great compost bin in the sky.

I slipped it into conversation one night at dinner after I casually gave Lyma a physical and realized that I had never witnessed a piece of citrus that squishy soft without also being covered with a healthy coat of mold. We needed to get this show on the road – and there was no telling how it was going to play out.

As it turned out it was difficult, but Stella handled it with an amazing amount of grace. I gave her the option of putting Lyma in the compost bin herself, or offering one of us to do it for her. With a gentleness and sorrow that I rarely ever see in her, she said that no, she wanted to do it herself after dinner. She then proceeded to say some reassuring words to Lyma, leaving both Steve and I dumbfounded at how things had gone this far.

More and more lately, I have noticed that when Stella is sad – really, truly, honestly sad – she shows it by trying to control it – eventually succumbing to a quiet sob. It is when she is melting down or screaming hysterically that it is clear to me that she is frustrated and angry, but not really sad. So you can imagine her stoicism as we quietly finished our dinner that night. Once we were finished, she somberly marched out to the compost bin by herself and stood there talking reassuringly to Lyma as she laid her gingerly on a pile of grass clippings. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore and I walked over to her and put my arms around her crouching shoulders as she stood there quietly crying, saying only, “Mommy, I miss Lyma.”

We stood there, hugging for a good couple of minutes while Stella cried into my shoulder. I was torn by the oddness of the situation. On one hand I was consoling my daughter about the loss of her friend. On the other hand, it was a lemon she had befriended three days earlier.

We haven’t talked about Lyma much since that fateful evening. I promptly went out and bought her a special mermaid doll to take in the bath with her – hoping it would smooth the transition a bit. And, I am secretly thankful that the recent pace of our lives, combined with the somewhat limited attention span of a 3 year old has meant that this chapter – the one lovingly titled Lyma the Lemon – may have come to a close. But not, I have realized, without a lesson or two.

Memorable v. Normal

Posted on July 5, 2007 by Natalie

So, here’s the scene. We are having that one moment when we are all sitting at the table eating dinner. At the same time. That moment when no one is getting up, or running around or crying. That moment when Steve and I look at each other and think, “Oh my God, we are actually having a family moment.”

But then. Then, you look a little closer. And that is when you realize that the definition of a family moment is left open to interpretation. A wide and vast interpretation that is defined more by your standard of memorable than by your standard of normal.

Let’s take for example, this little mealtime gem…

First you have this:

Then Stella says, “Wouldn’t it be cool if you could take a bath in sour cream?”
And I say, “Yeah, that would be SO cool. You could fill up the whole bathtub and cover yourself up to your neck.”
To which, Steve – in his most reassuring voice – responds (more to himself than to anyone else at the table), “Yeah, but it would be okay because you could just take another bath and get all clean.”

Which makes you wonder how his brain doesn’t start oozing out his ears when A.) Porter was recently caught eating toilet paper out of the toilet bowl, B.) Stella decided to put her DVD du jour, Robin Hood, somewhere for safe keeping but can’t remember where, thereby putting the entire household on an Olympic-scale, needle-in-haystack reconnaissance mission, or C.) We had to install a flip-latch on the back-door because a certain 1-year-old has escaped into the backyard unnoticed on numerous occasions and been found looking like this: