unexpected

things i didn't know would make me feel like a grown-up, but do:

1. a walk-in closet

2. an upstairs

3. a washer and dryer that i picked out and bought--because i thought it was the best one.

4. a house that isn't just "good enough for now"

5. a really big bathroom just for me and my husband. (this morning, i took a shower in my new bathroom and felt so exposed because i had to take more than two steps to get from the door to the shower.)

things i knew would make me feel like a grown-up, and do:

1. a mortgage

2. a kid old enough to be in school

3. a minivan

4. a lawnmower in our possession

5. more than one kids' bedroom

it has been somewhat dreamlike buying a house. everything was hypothetical and on paper. actually moving into our first home has been really fun (if you discount my feet that don't stop aching after 7 hours of sleep--oh, and my back). the week or two before the move, my emotions were very mixed. not just about the change, but the fact that we wouldn't be moving far away to a new state, which has been our supposed plan for over 5 years. but now that we are actually here, figuring out the best way to organize our space, i find myself planning for the future quite happily--something i never thought would happen. when we started looking for a house, and i was sulking because we were looking here instead of in greener pastures, my mom said an improved living situation would totally change my outlook on our location. and, of course, she was right. so here we are. in a nice house. like grown-ups.

why one should not move while pregnant

i don't know whether it was my body or my brain that woke me, but it's feeling impossible to get back to sleep now. my back won't loosen enough to get comfortable: i keep flipping over, realize this position isn't any better than the last, and then focus on my back and neck only to realize that i am crouched down, as if i'm trying to get through a tunnel several inches shorter than my height. what i really want to do is lie on my stomach for a while, but i am way past the point of lying on my stomach with any degree of comfort. there's kind of a mass between my stomach and the bed. that mass actually keeps jumping around just when i try to relax out of my crouch again.

also, i'm hungry!

and then there's my mind: movers are coming to pack us tomorrow, (i hope! i tried to call back and confirm that they were coming but convinced myself that sitting on hold for 20 minutes wasn't productive, so troy emailed them in reply to a confirmation request. hope that's enough!) and i did all i could think of to do last night to organize and sort and leave things relatively neat so the packing and unpacking will go smoothly, but i'm also getting a little frantic thinking about what else i should have done and what i should do today, most of it depending on other people who aren't up yet, like sane people.

and then there's the problem of every little noise in the house being magnified because it's totally devoid of kid noise. the clock ticking, a cricket chirping. oh the cricket has stopped now. you know how in movies sometimes they'll get closer and closer to the clock with every tick? that's what it feels like right now. i'm practically inside the clock.

i suppose my mind would be racing in a moment such as this, pregnant or not. but it certainly doesn't help matters. if i could have stayed asleep instead of my awesomely pregnant body waking me up...

wish me luck.

motley assortment

1. i love when my children play together behind a closed door and i get to hear the crazy stories they come up with, unaided by anything electronic. just play. they provide voices, storyline, sound effects

2. i have a strong dislike for dog hair in my house. a friend of ours came over last night and brought her dog with her. it was raining outside so i couldn't just send the dog and the boys outside to play, so everybody was inside. i tried really hard not to mind, and the poor creature was fine once my boys left her alone. it was only this morning that i noticed the pile of hair under my piano where the dog had been sitting.

3. speaking of not a good time, i think i will rejoice when my life does not revolve around the excretory systems of any number of small people.

4. have i mentioned how excited i am to not be sharing a bathroom with my children? i went to go today and moved the step stool out of the way of the toilet without thinking about it. then i thought, i won't have to do this again after next week! no one who will be using my bathroom will need a step stool!

hallelujah.

things i wish for sometimes

i wish i could sit down with a tutor or one of my linguistics professors from college and just talk about different language questions i have, or talk about the likelihood of certain theories i've come up with over the years. one such theory has to do with the different accents in the new world vs their old world counterparts. i think the english, french, and spanish spoken on this side of the Atlantic have departed from their European roots in the same general way. i think it would be a very fun research project, but i would have to learn french and spanish as they are spoken here, and also spend time learning how they are spoken in europe (wouldn't that be an awesome reason to go to europe for a few months?). my underlying theory is that over here we're lazier. way more slang, looser diphthongs, looser morals about grammar and borrowings and coinage. maybe i'll do some research someday.

i wish i could sit down and really study cantonese again without the i'm-not-immediately-good-at-this-therefore-i-fear-it wall. because i did get good at certain aspects of it! it would be fun to study with my husband. what a hot tutor. :) i want to get out my calligraphy stuff again too, but i fear it has been too long and i don't really have a text book per se. just equipment and the fading memory of my class to go by.

i wish there were still such a thing as summer break after one's formal education is over.

wow. it really sounds like i want to go back to school. how can this be? when i finished college i thought i would never find the idea of stressing over papers, projects, and tests appealing again. of course, since then my life has become, shall we say, more populated. different stressors that have nothing to do with being evaluated (except in my own mind) are far more taxing than anything school threw at me. obviously, when i think about doing it in my current state, the idea immediately loses its appeal. why in the world would i put myself through that? i don't have any urgent, passionate need to get a masters in linguistics or audiology or copy-editing right now. but i also don't have the discipline or attention span to make a real study of anything on my own. so, i value conversations that center around language, and am on the lookout for good books on the subject. to remind me that i am an intellectual of sorts.

maybe i'll start with tolkien. i read a very simple biography (meant for children slightly older than mine) a while ago and i am still wondering what terrifying secrets weren't broached, and which might taint the image i have of him (it seems to be the mission of some biographers to smear famous dead people). so it is with trepidation that i consider finding a more detailed biography. although maybe the best way to find out more about him is to read what he wrote. i am ashamed to say i only ever read fellowship. maybe this summer break...

pensieve

i am restless. i have been lying in bed for an hour wishing my mind would calm down. so here are the random wanderings, in the hope that sleep will follow if they can stop pinging the walls of my mind.

1. my baby and i are apparently affected by overloads of chocolate. i spent most of the evening thinking i didn't understand what people were talking about when they said they were hyper after eating too much chocolate. then i came home and tried to sleep, but my pregnant body is pulsing more quickly than normal (you know that feeling of your whole body pulsing instead of having to find it, like after you've been exercising? it happens all the time when you're pregnant.) and the baby is doing a serious jig. i don't think i've felt her move this much for this long yet.

2. tomorrow i need to get really crackin' on preparing our house for a move. all i have to do is find homes for everything. no heavy lifting or finding boxes or packing my own kitchen. is that so hard? i think because i know someone else will be actually putting our stuff into boxes and then moving it, i have been feeling like it's all taken care of, and it will require no effort from me at this end. not so. at least, not if i want the unpacking to be less of a nightmare than it has to be.

3. i am going to miss the young women in this ward. i felt very lucky to have been part of our activity tonight--we talked about books we liked and recommended to everyone else. i was skeptical of the response to the book exchange idea until everyone showed up and we had quite a lively discussion extolling the virtues and drawbacks of many books. what a fun group of girls, and how happy i was to discover that they all really enjoy reading and form strong opinions about what they read. i think that's a wonderful indication of coherent thought, which seems to be a dying art in the age of immediacy. it didn't hurt that there were several cakes to sample.

4. i wish i could stop comparing myself to others. it always results in my feeling like the lesser of two (or more) parties. i want to be able to see others as they are, and know with my whole self that whatever they are, they don't threaten my worth. i know this in my head, and in my heart, but often not at the same time, or in the moment when it would be most useful to my sense of security.

5. my two-year-old son keeps coughing. i hope he sleeps well tonight. he doesn't seem to be awakened by his coughing, which is a good sign, nor does his coughing sound like the barking of a seal, or have any other indications that would make me worry too much.

6. i have to figure out how to spend my time in a more rational manner than what i've been doing. it seems like there should be more to my day than one errand and reading the archives of a certain blog, no matter how entertaining it is, and no matter how kindred. especially when moving day looms in a shocking number of days.

7. it's okay to be who i am. fears of how others perceive me are boundless and worthless. of course i can improve, but that doesn't mean that my current self is not worth knowing or loving. i wonder why moving is bringing on these thoughts. or maybe they've been simmering for some time, and now are coming to a rapid boil. perhaps the thought of starting over in a new ward? fear of reverting to my awkward, teen-aged self instead of remaining my (sometimes) more confident, almost-thirty self? i do have something of a pizza face because of the little nudger inside me, and random fits of inexplicable anger, which would be support for the teenager coming out in other ways, like feeling like no one understands me and never will. either way, i can't be loopy from sleep deprivation on top of everything else.

so i'm going to bed now. thank you for listening. that is all.

item #1

this morning, before i could sit down on the toilet seat, i had to wipe it down so it would be free of urine.

in the new house, i will have a master bathroom from which i can ban small children who have trouble aiming. i realize that this is probably an unrealistic dream, since said small children follow me wherever i go, and quite enjoy squeezing the entire family into the smallest space possible, like on one step of the step stool. but right now i can't lock the door and not worry that if i do, i will have a puddle awaiting me when i get out of the shower, thus sacrificing any possibility of taking a shower without someone wandering into the bathroom to talk to me. so i will continue to conjure visions of toilet seats free of urine all the time, and showers uninterrupted, since i don't know what the reality will be until we actually move.

that is all.

beginnings

about a year ago, we moved to a little house for our "last year" here. then it became clear that we needed a bigger place. and that we should stay. so, we bought a house. we will take possession next week, and move a few days later. we will be far enough away from the life we've built in seven years that it will take more effort to see people we know than it does now, but not so far that we won't see anyone again. meanwhile, it will be a new neighborhood, new on-ramp, new school. sort of in between starting over and just shifting a little bit.

i can't decide if the new beginning part is what i'm dreading the most or if i'm still dealing with the decision to stay. i don't have to switch any doctors, and i will most likely still shop at the same grocery store. i have acquaintances in my new area, so i won't go in totally blind. and the house itself holds many charms.

maybe it's feeling like the end that began last july when andrea left is really the end. it was always bittersweet to think about buying a house (which also meant moving away) because she wouldn't be there to be excited about it with me. but she actually moved away from here, and i stayed. and now i'm feeling that loss again because she's not here. maybe i didn't properly grieve when she left because i felt like my life was still pending, and buying a house here feels more like an answer to the future questions i had. and so this is the future that i have to figure out without her here.

i should explain andrea. we met when i was 23. and you could say we grew up together. she lived downstairs from me. i started having kids, figuring out being a wife and mother, and she went through a divorce. my growth and hers triggered further development in each other as we supported one another. sometimes i felt like she probably didn't need me as much as i needed her, but i think that was mostly my insecurities talking. we still talk as much as we can even though she's in another time zone now, but it's certainly not the same as going down two floors to "get the mail" and hang out for an hour, letting our kids play and snack as we tackled the latest emotional distress. she was my other sister/other mom/therapist who always asked the right questions to get down to what the real issue was. so i think this move is feeling a little like getting married, in a way. i have been apart from her for a while, but now it feels more permanent somehow, like leaving home for the last time as a single woman.

so it will be a new start, and i know it will be a good thing. there is a lot to do, and a lot will change. but it's another ending too.