30 Days of Thankfulness

Despite the fact that I am angry and heartbroken a lot these days, I still also try to be intentionally grateful, every day. What I've realized is that it takes very little for me to be deeply content and happy in my own daily life -- and despite the horror of the big picture, our individual lives are still made up of these beautiful moments and experiences that matter.

Social media in November is often full of folks sharing what they're thankful for, and it's not a bad practice, but I find that if I just try to list "Things I'm thankful for" every day for a month it just turns into the same list. Of course I'm thankful for my family, my home, my friends. This year, though, I'm borrowing from my old friend Jen, who shared a new approach on Facebook: "Thirty Days of Thankfulness" grounded in the ordinary details of our daily lives. I've been writing them down all month long, and tonight I thought I'd share them here.

Day 1: Person
One of my very truest friends. I call him "Coach" when I write about him online. He's one of the most important people in my life, and I can't imagine my life without him in it or the person I would be without him. He makes me want to be the best version of myself, and he loves me even when I fall short. He's honest with me. He always manages to find my re-set button, even long-distance, and he always seems to bring the perspective I need. He's really raised me as a teacher, and as a human.

Day 2: Animal
The otters and harbor seals at the Seattle Aquarium, where we spent a couple of hours this month with my friend Jessica and her kiddos. Also the octopus, who was alert and energetic and fun to watch. (The animals were great, but thinking of them really reminds me about how thankful I am that I still have this friendship from my childhood, and that our kids know each other, and even when we don't see each other for a long time we can still hang out like no time at all has passed.)

Day 3: Cozy Place
My living room couch on late fall or early winter Sunday afternoons, especially with Isaac's fleece Batman blanket.

Day 4: Snack: Pop Secret Homestyle Popcorn (only because I can't have my dad's homemade popcorn whenever I want it). My absolute favorite time for this is after school on Fridays...I pop some for the kids and me, change into pajama pants, put on a movie for them, pour a little red wine for me, and curl up with a really good book.

Day 5: Place
Kalaloch, on the Olympic Peninsula. Matt and I love staying in a bluff cabin for anniversary getaways in December. My soul is so peaceful there -- the wild ocean in winter, the empty beaches. I think it does for my heart and psyche what Lake McDonald does in summer, with fewer people. (A lot fewer people.) We spend all our daylight hours exploring the beaches, and at night we curl up with books and drinks and snacks and a fire, and it is perfect. Also: there is absolutely no wi-fi. The cabins do not have televisions or telephones. In case of emergency, there is a phone at the main lodge, and if you really need to watch a movie or whatever the main lodge also has a cozy library/game room with a TV, but I love (love) the opportunity to disconnect with technology and connect with the human I'm with and really just be present in my surroundings in a way that feels like a luxury.

Day 6: Pair of Shoes
I so don't care about shoes, like at all, and I would happily go barefoot all the time if I could. I'm thankful for my Danskos because they last a long time and I don't have to think about what to wear most days, and I can kick them off as soon as I walk in my door.

Day 7: Scent
Roasting chicken on Sunday evenings (one of my favorite meals, and we have this once or twice a month, always on Sundays). Pumpkin or caramel or cinnamon-scented candles. Christmas trees. My husband's t-shirts when he wears them fresh out of the shower. (My husband, freshly showered.)

Day 8: Restaurant
The Elliott Bay Brewery in West Seattle, which we have loved for our entire married lives. Actually, our love for EBB dates from before we were married. We've practically raised our children there. I love their cozy booths, their grown-up grilled cheese, their Cabernet (Matt loves the beer more than I do; I prefer wine), their burgers (the BEST!), their ahi tacos, their vegetarian chili, their monthly specials, and the folks who know us well enough to know exactly how our kids like their carrots steamed.

Also, Plum Bistro, one of our favorite kid-free date spots. (I really, really hope we can go soon.) Their Fresh Thyme Quinoa Pie is so good I could cry just thinking about it, because suddenly I want it and I can't have it right this second. I also really love their Olive Pesto Tofu and their Tempeh Vermouth. Bonus: it's easy walking distance from my favorite bookstore.

Day 9: Blog/website
Goodreads! Do you like to read? If you do, and you're not on Goodreads, GET ON GOODREADS. I love reading what people think about the books they're reading. I love writing about what I'm reading.

I also love jennibick.com because I am always in search of the perfect journal and all my favorites come from there, and the customer service is above and beyond.

Day 10: Time of Day
I really love early mornings, if I need to be out earlier than usual. I love the still quiet. I am, by nature, a morning person; it's just that since having kids I so adore having a little time to myself after they go to bed that it's hard to get enough sleep to really appreciate those early mornings. (My daughter, it seems, is following in my footsteps. Jazz band starts at 7 a.m., and I have no idea what time that child gets up. No matter how early I get up, she's always up first.)

On ordinary weekdays, I love the time when I get to school, Americano in hand, and -- unless I have a meeting, which happens about once a week -- I have a quiet hour in my classroom.

On weekends, I love the time when the kids have gone to bed and I'm curled up on the couch writing and/or watching Neflix or tucked in with a book and often and gin and tonic on the couch. Matt and I are companionably together, even if he's watching something and I'm reading.

Day 11: Traditions
Every November, the week of Thanksgiving, I watch Pieces of April. Usually it's the night before Thanksgiving, while Matt bakes (or at least preps) the pumpkin and pecan pies we contribute to Thanksgiving dinner. It is my very favorite movie, ever since I first saw it shortly after it came out -- almost fifteen years ago, I think? I'll always love Katie Holmes as April, although everyone in it is absolutely perfect. It's a simple story, really; April, the estranged daughter, invites her family to Thanksgiving dinner at her apartment on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. The movie follows two strands -- the family's drive to the city, and April's meal preparations, which are foiled by a broken oven, so she has to rely on the kindness of her neighbors. The conclusion is beautiful and I sob every time I watch it. Someday I'd love to watch it with my mom.

Day 12: Gadgets
This isn't really a gadget, but I don't...know anything about gadgets, or what counts as one. So I'm going to say our new stainless steel refrigerator, which we had to buy because our freezer stopped working. And we got to buy it form one of my former students, a quiet boy with a radiant smile. I never forgot that smile, and seeing it again seven years later made everything about the experience pretty okay.

Day 13: Something old
Our dining room table, which came from my grandmother's house on the farm. The sides could fold down so that it fit inside the corner of the tiny kitchen in my first college apartment; I can also add heavy leaves to extend it across my dining room. It's sturdy and well made, and I've never seen a table with internal gears that turn when the table is widened to accommodate more people.

Day 14: Something new
The bookshelf in Suzannah's bedroom, because it restores my sense of order and gave us a reason to clear out so many things she no longer needs. Her piles of books are off her floor!

Also: our new roof. We've needed one for awhile, but not urgently. I'm glad we took the time to get it looked at well over a year ago so we could plan and save, and now we'll never need to spend another penny on this roof as long as we live in this house -- and my husband won't have to climb up there to try to scrape off the moss anymore. (I'm a worrier. I didn't love it when he did that.)

Day 15: Experience
Watching my daughter play soccer under the lights at night. We had this fantastic referee at a game in Puyallup last year who said, "Girls this age, you don't get 'em under the lights very often, but there's just nothing like it!"

Also, watching my kids compete in their first Tae Kwon Do tournament was so much fun. I love everything about Tae Kwon Do and I am so thankful it's become part of our lives, and I truly believe they're learning from the very best of the best.

Finally, I so love our family weekend getaways, and this is the point in year when I start to look forward to them: Great Wolf Lodge for the kids' birthdays, Leavenworth in late January, and Portland/Powell's in February. This is how we get through the post-Christmas slog: hotel pools, cozy meals, lights, sledding, bookstores.

Day 16: Recipe
My grandmother's potato salad, which is sublime. I remember watching her make it -- cutting the potatoes into precise uniform cubes. Her careful slicing of the egg. My mother makes it beautifully; I've never tried. I fear I lack the patience, because I take after my grandfather.

Something I do make, and something I love this time of year: soup. I love soup recipes. I love cauliflower-chickpea soup with cranberry chutney and Indonesian sweet potato and cabbage soup, both from the Moosewood cookbook. I also love pumpkin and white bean bisque, or coconut pumpkin soup topped with diced cooked chicken, or Portuguese kale and potato soup topped with sausage.

And I really enjoy the cheesy black bean and quinoa bake from the Picky Eater Blog. (We've gotten so many recipes from that site; I should add it to Day 9.

Day 17: Store
The Elliott Bay Book Company
Third Place Books
King's Books
Powell's
Basically any indie bookstore (which is where I choose to buy books, because I have access here and I believe strongly in supporting independent bookstores)

Day 18: Quote
From my two very favorite writers...

"You get a little moody sometimes but I think that's because you like to read. People that like to read are always a little fucked up." --Pat Conroy, The Prince of Tides

"A story untold could be the one that kills you." --Pat Conroy

"My wound is geography. It is also my anchorage, my port of call." --the first sentence of The Prince of Tides and, very seriously, possibly, my next tattoo

"The only word for goodness is goodness, and it is not enough." --Pat Conroy

"Love is the story and the prayer that matters the most." --Brian Doyle

"There are stories in the air as thick as birds around me, he would say. I will save these stories from starving, he would say. I have a great hunger for stories, he would say." --Brian Doyle, Mink River

Day 19: Clothing
My favorite socks from Kalaloch Lodge (otters, orcas) and my Turnip Shirt. I wear it with leggings and a stretchy skirt when I just need to Not Care. Also, the folks who work in the produce section at Marlene's, this fabulous natural foods store near me, love my Turnip Shirt.

Day 20: Keepsake
My maternal grandmother's wedding ring and my paternal grandmother's necklace, the one she designed and had made a few years after my grandpa died. They're not pieces I wear, but they are special to me. I am not usually sentimental about things, but these small things feel like tangible connections to my family.

Day 21: A disappointment or a fear
This is hard. I want to come up with something more concrete to share, but for now, I'll just say that something I thought I wanted is something I am far better off without, and I'm thankful for that realization, for what it's taught me. There's a reason we have all these pithy sayings about hindsight.

Day 22: Book
The one I just finished, for providing the perfect Thanksgiving weekend reading experience: The Witch Elm, by Tana French. I was nervous about this being a stand-alone because I love the world of the Dublin Murder Squad, but it may actually be my favorite so far -- even though I warmed to so few of the characters, French's ability to take us inside their minds and learn what drives them is what sets her apart form the mystery writers I read "for fun."

The one I'm currently reading: The Mere Wife by Maria Dahvana Headley. It's a modern re-visioning of Beowulf: Beowulf in the suburbs. The language is stunning and I'm loving it.

Also: All the books I go back to when I need a particular page or passage...this quote from The Overstory by Richard Powers (also a stunning read) resonates:

Someday you'll need to take down a worn-out volume on the lower right-hand face, ten pages from the end, that fills you with such sweet and vicious pain.

Day 23: Feeling:
The moment I slide into sleep on a Sunday afternoon, cuddled under Isaac's fleece blanket
or
The way I feel when I'm completely caught up in grading and my desk is clear
or
Leaving my house on Wednesday morning after I've cleaned...scrubbed bathrooms and vacuum lines in the carpet. My colleagues make fun of me, but I'm up hours before I take my son to school, and I love coming home to a sanctuary in the middle of the week. And my house is my sanctuary -- I do better when it's not cluttered and dirty.

Day 24: Photo
My current Facebook profile photo, a drawing my son made for me -- two hearts holding hands, labeled "Mommy" and "Me." That's more of a drawing than a photo, though. I love photos of my children than show them being their absolutely true ridiculous selves, snapped in the moment. I love photos of our family in our favorite places: Bozeman, Glacier. Matt and me Kalaloch, the wind whipping my hair, the ocean in the background. Or even just the ocean, roiling at the shore in the first light of day.

Also: Google sends me "Rediscover this day!" notifications, and I love the pictures that remind me that four or five years ago my children were so short and round and little and soft. I would never wish them backwards, but oh. My babies.

Day 25: Luxury
Reading and/or writing alone for an uninterrupted stretch of time. Wandering through a bookstore by myself. Having alone time at the Elliott Bay Book Co. -- books, coffee, wine. Sitting alone an airplane, once I've calmed down. Reading, ordering a glass of wine.

Day 26: Charity, non-profit, organization, etc.
Matt and I have given to all of these, and all are worth of our support:
Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society - https://hias.org
American Civil Liberties Union - https://www.aclu.org/
Southern Poverty Law Center - https://www.splcenter.org/
Everytown for Gun Safety - https://everytown.org/
Planned Parenthood - https://www.plannedparenthood.org/
Pat Conroy Literary Center - http://patconroyliterarycenter.org/
Homeless Humans of Tacoma - https://www.facebook.com/homelesshumans.help/
NPR - https://www.npr.org/

Day 27: Song
Right now I really love listening to my CD from the 2002 Concordia Christmas Concert when I'm driving, since that one is in my car. That and Sarah McLachlan's Wintersong. At this time of year, I want to feel everything -- the darkness and the light -- and this is the music that takes me through it all.

Day 28: Gift
At the end of the last school year, my departing seniors gave me a copy of Because I Had A Teacher. They'd written messages inside, and I keep it close by for days when I need to remember why I do this job. It works. Every time I read what they wrote, I'm reminded of what a deep privilege it is to do this work. And that gift is one of the best I've ever received.

Day 29: Something at home
Simple comforts that I love coming home to: my microwave heat pack (I love curling up with that in bed, or during Sunday afternoon naps, or on the couch at night when I'm curled up with a book); the candles I light in the kitchen that smell like caramel and cinnamon or spiced apple toddies; the Norwex cleaning products that allow me to clean my house really efficiently; my snowflake mugs that I only use during the holiday season; my kids' drawings hung up in different parts of the house; my pajama pants and slippers. Honestly, I'm a homebody. I love coming home and I love spending time here with my family. Which brings me to this...

Day 30: What I'm MOST thankful for
This is the most obvious, but I'm most thankful for my family. The family that raised me and the family I live with. My husband and my children, my reasons for breathing. I grumble about the dirty socks, the crumbs on the counter, the toys strewn across the family room, the noise, the bickering, the fact that I haven't had uninterrupted time in the bathroom in over a decade...but the things I bitch about are also the nudging reminders that the sources of those irritants are people I love with every breath I take, and I will choose it all, again, every single day, with my whole heart.

Our backyard, and other summertime musings

It is barely July, and already I feel so far away from the frenetic last weeks of the school year. For the most part, we are not bound by schedules in summer because I think there is great value in surrendering to the vast open promise of each day. If it is sunny, we will be outside, probably in water at some point. If it is not, we will still probably be outside, but if not, I think there is also value in my children learning how to cope with boredom. I don’t turn on the TV at all until I need to chop vegetables before dinner, and so my children are forced either to annoy each other or find something else to do. Suzannah has been reading and reading and reading, and if she’s not in my direct line of sight she is almost always sitting cross-legged on her bed with a book. Isaac might mope around and whine, “But Mommy, I don’t know what to play with,” but then he usually busies himself with a puzzle or his Duplos or one of the play cooking sets. This morning he turned his sister’s Strawberry Shortcake thermos into a “blaster” and informed me that one of his “guys” was stuck inside the spout, which, regrettably, was true. It’s still there, and his sister doesn’t know. I’ll deal with it later.

The largely unstructured time (with the exception of swimming lessons, and Saturday gymnastics) works against me a bit, though, as much as I need it. Without the distraction of the classroom -- the dynamics, the immediacy of teenagers and their needs -- I tend towards anxiety. I hang on to things, chew on them. I diagnose myself with too many things because I read something alarming on the internet, or I find myself stewing over a careless word that I wouldn’t bother so much with in, say, October or March. When something bothers me, it bothers me a lot. Last night I stayed awake far too late (not stewing, but reading), and when I finally went to bed, I couldn’t turn off my brain. Then, just for fun, I decided someone was absolutely trying to break into our house, so I prowled around fiercely in the dark for awhile, checking the locks and making sure my children were still breathing, which is a different anxiety, and at the back of all of that I wondered whether I was truly appreciating my summer the way I should be. Welcome to my crazy.

I do better when I take internet breaks, and it’s sad, but I actually schedule these -- starting on a specific day, with specific restrictions (e-mail is okay, Facebook isn’t, etc). I do better when I’m reading and writing and making sure I exercise each week, when I’m cooking good food and carving out time with my children, both together but also individually. I do better when I sleep, but I’m terrible at this. (I’m working on it. Kind of.) I do better when I can look back on even my unstructured days and recognize that they were lived well. For instance, things I want to remember about the past couple of weeks include: taking my daughter to Tacoma after her last day of second grade, eating lunch together and riding the Link. Buying her a book at the UW bookstore and a cookie dough cupcake afterwards. Reading with her, each of us with our own books, sprawled on a blanket under our huge tree in the front yard. Walking to Starbucks in the afternoons for afternoon treats -- cake pops and vanilla scones for the kids, coffee for me. Making huge salads of fresh local lettuce and roasted baby beets for dinner. Jogging along Puget Sound in the salty morning air. Spending time with my parents before and after their trip to Boston, watching home movies at Aaron and Morgan’s house (and showing my kids what Mommy looked like when she ran along the beach at Ocean Shores in 1988, at the age of nine). Taking the kids to the splash park. Eating dinner with friends on the Tacoma waterfront, sharing sushi with Becca in West Seattle, having coffee with a dear friend who’s moving to another city in a week or so. I want to hold and remember even the simplest things: waking slowly, kissing Matt before he leaves, pouring cereal for the kids and cooking an egg for myself (with greens if I’m ambitious), sitting with my mug of coffee in the living room and stealing a few pages of a book while the kids shriek and giggle and dump their toys on the family room floor.

***
The last couple of days have been hot for the Pacific Northwest, and even though our little house doesn’t have air conditioning, I love the way the heat both slows us down and calls us out into the sunshine. I have not felt greatly motivated to, say, go for early-evening runs after spending the afternoon hours outside at the splash park, sweat trickling down my back before I jump through the water with my son (I’m that mom -- I make sure I’m good and soaked too before we make our tired way back to the car), but I do want to be outside all the time. The playground, the splash park, our own backyard. I’m never so in love with where we live than I am in the summer, when I turn my children loose outside and watch them tear through the sprinkler, turning their slide into a waterslide and shrieking their hellos to the neighbor boys. I know exactly where to put my favorite lawn chair depending on the time of day; I know when the morning shade will slide away up my legs and have me reaching for my sunglasses and iced tea or water. Today while Isaac munched on a cookie during a break from his play, I thought about all the books I’ve read in this backyard: the last few Harry Potter books; The Lacuna, by Barbara Kingsolver; The Beet Queen, by Louise Erdrich; Faithful Place, by Tana French; At Swim, Two Boys, by Jamie O’Neill...there are others, of course, because we’ve lived in this house for over ten years now, but I have such specific memories of those novels and the way I sprawled in the backyard with them and let them carry me away on a summer day.

I remember staining our old deck, summer after summer, starting a year or two after we bought the house -- and I don’t miss it, either the deck or the staining. Not one tiny bit. I’m so in love with our simple concrete patio and our simple patio furniture; I just want to hang out back there all the time. I remember Suzannah’s first plastic little wading pool and her first little swimsuit -- a two-piece, because I couldn’t resist showing off her round toddler tummy. (I remember the day she slipped and fell on her face in the water, and how in my hurry to pick her up I dropped my camera in the pool. It never really recovered.) I remember sitting under our cherry tree while she climbed on her first little backyard play set and splashed in that same wading pool a year later, trying to read and take notes one of the books I was planning to teach during the next school year. The title page of that book still bears blue ballpoint scribbles, my daughter’s contribution to annotating the text. The following summer we squeezed into the wading pool together. I was pregnant with her brother, and that summer was the hottest I’d experienced in Washington; my relief came from letting my daughter pour buckets of water over me in the backyard before I led us both inside to try (mostly unsuccessfully) to nap.

Things have changed in the eleven years we’ve lived here, of course. We’ve added two children, a more permanent swing/play set, and a modest garden. We tore out the horrible rotting wooden deck and replaced it with a patio that requires nothing from me. Our immediate neighbors have added three boys of roughly the same ages as my children, and the old dogs plodding around their backyard (blind, deaf, one wearing an argyle sweater) have been replaced by four shrill and energetic miniature dachshunds. Our pug puppy has become the old dog, and now she is the one who hobbles around the backyard, fumbling her way back to the door because she can’t see it or hear us calling her.

But really, when I sit in our backyard, I am sitting outside time. There is only the sunshine, and the trees. The sound of the birds, a distant lawnmower. The scent of charcoals, grilling hamburgers, cut grass, sunscreen. The clink of the ice cubes in my glass of water or tea. Sometimes it startles me to remember my children as babies and toddlers, their unsteady legs wobbling across this grass, this yard. Here. Now they run, they run through the backyard, they open the gate and run around to the front where Matt is mowing, they open the sliding doors to run inside for a drink or a bathroom break or a toy. I deliver snacks and towels, I rub sunscreen into their flushed cheeks and spread it across their backs and legs, but mostly I stay on the sidelines. I can sip my ice water, sit for awhile, and read a few pages of my book. And while I’m grateful for these little moments of relative freedom, I thank God they are still young enough to call out, ”Watch me, Mommy!”

If I never have more than I have right now, it will be enough.

Housekeeping

We nearly drove to Seattle this afternoon; we have some passes to the IMAX theater at the Pacific Science Center, and it seemed like a good day for that -- cold and gray and so Novemberish. But in the shuffle to get out the door to gymnastics class, Matt said, “We could just stay home -- I’d be fine with that, too.” I paused for a moment, because I didn’t want the rest of the afternoon to be about stir-crazy kiddos whining about watching videos because it wasn’t quite nice enough to spend the day outside. But only a moment. It might have been a nice day to visit the IMAX theater, but it was an even better day to hunker down at home.

I ran four miles this afternoon. It was cold and windy but I had new music and I felt so good out there, running through the damp streets with the Saturday afternoon traffic pulsing around me. Matt took the kids out for a bike ride while I did that, and they came home red-cheeked and cheerful. We put together an easy dinner with the last of our weekly veggie box, and the companionable closeness -- Matt peeling and dicing turnips while I scrubbed sunchokes, the kids digging out some of their neglected toys in the family room -- is what I love most about these nights when we’re all home together.

We’ve been cleaning out toys, another November ritual. Four years ago, my parents brought out my fabulous Strawberry Shortcake dollhouse for Suzannah, complete with every other Strawberry Shortcake accessory I collected in my girlhood -- probably thirty dolls, plus the trolley, plus the tricycle...I was very pregnant with Isaac at the time, and I hoped that dollhouse would provide some engaging playtime for Suzannah while I was busy with her newborn sibling (or even before that, when I was too tired and cumbersome to be much fun for her. Also, the dolls made nice rewards for using the potty). I remember that house as such a clear part of my own childhood, and I was eager to pass it on to my own children, so it made a welcome addition to our little home. But four years later, both of my children have mostly outgrown it, and our little house just doesn’t have the space for it anymore. After clearing it with the kids, we packed it up and sent it back to my parents via my brother this weekend. It’s a little bittersweet, not so much because I’ll miss the house itself, but because it’s another reminder that my children are growing older, leaving their sweet toddlerhoods behind.

I have to say, though, that I do love that bit of extra space in our family room. It’s still very much a play room, dominated by toy bins and shelves, but man, that house took up some space. (How did we ever fit an exercise bike in here?) We’re also beginning our annual toy purge before Christmas comes. I don’t know how we accumulate so much stuff, much of which I swear we didn’t buy, but whatever, whatever. I love clearing out what we don’t use or need, and the kids enjoy rediscovering toys they haven’t seen in quite some time. They are blessedly cooperative about sorting through and bidding farewell to things they don’t play with much anymore (although this week Suzannah rediscovered this horrible little harmonica she hasn’t played in forever and she refuses to give it up; likewise, Isaac decided he cannot possibly part with a particular wooden toy composed of irritating little blocks that scatter everywhere, even though I’m not sure he’s ever really played with it).

Matt has been at a convention in Las Vegas all week (and has no desire to take us there for a family vacation, it seems, which is fine with me). Naturally, I found myself appreciating what a great team we generally make, although the kids were good to me this week, and we fell into a comfortable groove right away. They were sweet and cooperative, and I’m not sure we even had any real meltdowns. Meals were cooked, stories were read, bedtimes went more or less smoothly. It’s pretty great to feel that my kids and I make a good team, too. What was harder were the little things, like having to stay up late enough on Thursday night to let the dog out one more time even though I desperately wanted to go to bed as soon as the kids went down -- but if I’d let her out then she’d have barked me out of bed at four in the morning. And I don’t sleep well alone. The first night I felt like I’d hardly slept. When Matt is gone, I can’t relax; I prowl around the house checking and re-checking the locks and making sure my children are breathing, and then I crawl into bed and lie there, hyper-sensitive to any sound. If the kids wake in the night (which is rare but still does sometimes happen, especially with Isaac, who is prone to hollering at random intervals that he is thirsty or heard a noise) I am usually the one that hears them first anyway, but when we’re both home I feel pretty easy about it all. When I know it’s all me, it’s harder to relax. It reminded me of those rare nights when I’ve slept in a different room in our house because one of us is sick. Sleeping in a different bedroom, closer to the street instead of the backyard, is rather disorienting; I hear different sounds -- cars driving by on the street instead of the wind in the backyard.

I’d adjusted by the last night and slept fairly well, but I’m glad he’s home just the same. I keep a cleaner house when I’m the one running the show, but I’ll trade that for having my partner to laugh with, to have him floss our daughter’s teeth while I rock with our son, and to be able to reach across the bed in the dark and find him solidly there.

These days

Three is a difficult age. Ask my son; he’s deep in its clutches right now -- feeling all the feelings without having developed coping mechanisms to deal with them yet. Mostly, I can weather the stubbornness and the tantrums and the unreasonableness with good humor. For one thing, last time I had a three-year-old child I also had a newborn and I was developing coping mechanisms right along with her; this time, I have the remarkable advantage of not being postpartum and hormonal. For another thing, while three-year-olds are often quite insufferable, they are also prone to moments of unbearable sweetness and hilarity, often several times a day, and those are the moments I fall back on when I am tempted to call my current three-year-old a Little Shit in front of his gymnastics teacher.

He’s a contrary little guy these days, though. No matter what we’re doing or where we’re going, he voices strong opinions against it. “I don’t wanna go there.” “I don’t wanna do that.” “I don’t wanna go potty.” “I don’t wanna eat lunch. I not gonna eat.” “I don’t wanna swim.” “I don’t wanna go to my ‘nastics class.” When he’s feeling particularly grumpy, he might just resort to “I don’t wanna go somewhere.” Once, I don’t remember what Suzannah said exactly but it was something along the lines of, “Isaac, do you wanna be_________?” and he just furrowed his little eyebrows into a point and said, “No. I don’t wanna be.” That’s some heavy stuff for a preschooler.

And it’s trying for his mama, but I also know how I feel sometimes when everything is terrible or I’m tired, and I’ve got a few decades on him -- so I feel a little protective of his toddler angst when I perceive that certain attitude from people who are not parents of three-year-olds, people who have surely forgotten how hard it is to have so little real control over anything, really. Add to that the lack of perspective that grown-ups have when they are stuck in a car, or when they are hungry or exhausted; a little one doesn’t completely understand the concept of time well enough to get that this too shall pass. (Can you tell we just weathered a very fun but occasionally trying road trip? Hours upon hours in the car, irregular sleeping schedules, overstimulation, and a general absence of predictable routine took its toll upon my little guy. But he is also resilient, and this week he has expressed quite loudly that instead of coming back to our house to take a nap he wants to go back to Grandma and Grandpa’s house.)

Our summer days now have a rhythm to them -- something I need, although I also love the slowness induced by sunshine and heat. For me to be my best self I need to write and read and exercise at least a little bit every day. Both kids are taking swimming lessons right now, every morning. Suzannah is ready to get serious about them, which is beautiful to watch. She gets this fantastic expression of total, fierce concentration on her face when she’s ready to go for something, whether it’s tackling a cartwheel in her gymnastics class or taking a few strokes through the water all on her own. Isaac just loves to play, but he’s getting comfortable in the water and I don’t have to be the one in the pool with him now, which is exactly what I wanted out of swimming lessons.

In other news that is exciting to probably no one except me, last week we bid a not-so-fond farewell to our rotting old backyard deck and replaced it with a concrete patio. When we met with our contractor I was like, “Look, all I want is something I don’t have to maintain and something that is not ugly.” Pressure-washing a patio once a year I can handle, but I do not ever want to stain a deck again, and I most definitely do not want to try to grill dinner in our backyard only to spend the entire time hollering, “No, no! Don’t step there! Careful!” I can’t wait to spend the rest of the summer in our backyard, doing what we do (kids in the pool or sprinkler or sandbox, me reading on a lounge chair), and not worrying about some child -- either one of mine or one of the neighbors’ -- stepping through a hole in the deck. The guys did a beautiful job that exceeds all my expectations, and they were very sweet not to ever roll their eyes at me when they’d say, “We could do this, or this, or this...?” and I’d smile brightly and say, “Sure!” Finally I was all, “You guys just...do what you do.” So they did, and I love it. Bring on the rest of the summer.

Everything, just everything

I always feel a little disoriented at the end of a school year -- a little blue, even. This year, the end-of-the-year blues struck harder than usual, possibly because this year I actually was not counting down the minutes until the end. Last year, I think I started my “How many more Sunday nights are left” calculations sometime in March, if not the beginning of second semester. This year was markedly different in so many ways, not the least of which is that I loved all of my classes and didn’t spend approximately one night per week crying to Matt that we had to figure out some way for me to quit my job. Last year, I couldn’t get away fast enough. This year, I’m spending my first week of summer teaching a morning IB credit retrieval course for students who need a little extra help, and I’ve appreciated the fact that it’s easing me away from school a little more gently.

But I do love summer. I love the slowness of everything, the long shadows across the sidewalks when I go running in the evenings, the way the light catches the leaves along the streets near my home. I love picnics with my kiddos, afternoons spent in the backyard or at the splash park, the way they come home smelling like chlorine and sunscreen with their hair stuck to their sweaty foreheads. I love summer reading lists, the anticipation of the road trips we’ll take, keeping my toenails painted, and the sound of the fan in our bedroom at night.

We have all kinds of plans this summer: first, we’re tearing out our old, rotting deck and replacing it with a patio. I’m looking forward to not slapping a coat of stain on those old boards every year, and it will be lovely not to worry about, say, my three-year-old or one of the neighbor boys falling through one of the holes when they’re tearing around the yard. We grilled veggie burgers and ate outside tonight, and I had to say, “No, no -- don’t jump there!” half a dozen times.

Next weekend, the kids and I are road-tripping to Bozeman with my friend Kyanne. It’ll be like bringing home friends during breaks in college, except with car seats and children in the back. Later in July, one of my oldest friends is getting married in Glacier National Park, which is my favorite place in the world, and we’re definitely going to that. And in August, the Winslows are flying to Minnesota for a week or so. This is a good summer line-up. And in between these trips there will be gymnastics (for both kids), and swimming lessons, and picnics and running through the sprinkler and trying to coax our little garden to produce tomatoes and peas and herbs.

I’m also taking a writing workshop all summer. It started last weekend, and I can already tell it’s going to be really, really good and necessary for me. I always make ambitious writing goals during the summer, but since I’ve had children I haven’t been great about letting it out of the pages of my notebook. So I am doing this thing, finally.

In other news, I have a second-grader now.

And this is probably why the end of the year felt even more disorienting to me this year. I have this kid, this lovely little girl who is so aware of her second-gradeness. Two years ago I was pretty much constantly on the verge of barfing all the time, I was so nervous about her starting school -- and now here she is, seven years old, running around with all of these kids on the playground, deeply involved in all of these games that are totally separate from me, bringing home portfolios full of this gorgeous writing and art that burst forth from her own mind with no prompting or assistance from me. It is a beautiful, wonderful thing, but it leaves me spinning. Out of nowhere not long ago she said, “When I’m in twelfth grade, I’ll be seventeen.” And I was all, “Um, that’s...true, but maybe let’s just enjoy first grade for today?” Because what?

It has been a month of birthdays and birthday parties, of her Show Week at The Little Gym, the culmination of a year’s worth of gymnastics. It has been a month of first-grade concerts and end-of-the-year celebrations. Isaac, not to be left out of all the excitement, decided to poop in the potty this week. (Little Dude has been peeing in the potty since last fall -- we don’t even give him treats every time he goes anymore! -- but he staunchly refuses to poop there, preferring instead to hold it until he falls asleep at night, and aren’t you glad you’re reading this?) And on top of that, my seniors went and graduated on me, and one of my best friends is moving to China in a month, which meant that I did some hard, ugly crying in her classroom the last week of school. It is all just entirely too much, and it probably explains why I collapsed fully-clothed on our bed at eight o’clock the other night, fully intending to get up five minutes later and wash Suzannah’s hair before bed. What actually happened is that I fell asleep, dimly aware of Matt closing the bedroom door and saying, “Let’s let Mommy sleep, okay?” I woke up terribly confused at 9:30, and Matt was like, “You know, you could just go to bed for real,” and I was all, “Now?” Because that hasn’t happened since about 2005. But it sounded like a blessedly good idea. And it was.

Home again, home again...

On Sunday night -- well, really, Monday morning, well after midnight -- I signed online, unable to settle into sleep. It's like that, at the end of a road trip. We'd tried to make the last day of our vacation an easy one, going as far as Spokane on Saturday night. Before we had children, we never would have considered splitting the drive from Bozeman to Seattle into two days, nor would we consider such a thing at the beginning of the trip, all anticipation and eagerness to put in as many miles as possible. But after nearly two weeks of travel, from Washington to Montana to Canada back to Montana, after a couple of colds, after a trip through Glacier National Park and a day in Yellowstone, we thought a nice hotel room halfway on the last day, in a city we enjoy, would be a nice way to stave off post-vacation blues and prevent total meltdown from one or more members of the family.

And it was great, really, a total luxury to sleep in on Saturday morning and then go for a four-mile run with a view of the mountains and then pack and then enjoy a nice lunch with my parents and then hit the road only to stop in time for dinner and a semi-reasonable bedtime. Suzannah snuggled into her bed in the hotel and fell asleep on her own. Isaac willingly went to bed in his pack-n-play (which is a Big Deal; he started the first few nights in bed with me, and my sweet son does love to snuggle but sleeps like a pinball, so if I was hoping for a cozy little temporary return to co-sleeping -- which I was -- I was in for a rude little surprise, plus some happily kicking feet right in the kidneys). Matt brought me a drink from the hotel bar, and we stretched out and read our books in the peace and quiet.

I'll just gloss over the part about how when we arrived at our hotel, after trying unsuccessfully to use our room key like a thousand times and then having it reprogrammed twice (or whatever they do with those dumb little cards) and then having some maintenance guy up to the room, we learned that the main reason none of us could get inside was that it was actually occupied already. We learned this because when the maintenance guy finally got into the room, a pissy voice called out, "Someone's in here, dude." So he called down to the front desk, and they insisted that the room was still assigned to us.

"Well, that's interesting," the maintenance guy said. "I wonder who's in there, then. Either they made a mistake, or someone scooted in there after housekeeping finished up and locked it. They do that sometimes. We've had guys try to make off with a coupla TV's." We were led to a new (unoccupied!) room and given vouchers for free breakfasts in the restaurant for our trouble.

We had all these ambitious ideas about heading out early the next day, but we lingered over our awesome free breakfast -- Matt really rocked the huckleberry pancakes -- and took the kids swimming in the pool so Suzannah could get just a little more mileage out of her new Spiderman kickboard. (She has come a long way in her swimming this summer, and this mama is proud. And Isaac just loves the water, loves to be tossed, loves to jump into it without bothering to look and see if we're actually ready to catch him. Little Dude will be in real swimming lessons next summer, for sure.) After we checked out of our hotel, we stopped for a quick visit to Riverfront Park because we cannot pass up the carousel. And as it turns out, we cannot pass up the Riverfront Rotary Fountain either, especially when it is at least two hundred degrees at noon.

We didn't leave Spokane until three o'clock in the afternoon. The kids, post-splashing and post-lunch (where there may or may not have been some overtired whining and one almost-tantrum) were passed out in the back before we'd finished filling the car with gas. Matt turned to me and said, "I'm just gonna drive until I need gas again, is that cool?"

Crazy weekend traffic just west of Ellensburg added probably an hour to our drive time, but Matt didn't stop until we were nearly home, and then only because we needed a few grocery essentials so we could at least get through breakfast the next morning. I didn't stretch my legs until I climbed out of the car in my own driveway.

I can't describe how much I love the smell of my house after we've been gone awhile. Every time we return from someplace -- not an afternoon away, but a real trip -- the smell of our house reminds me that coming home is awfully sweet.

That feeling lasts for about five minutes. Then the study fills up with luggage and the previously clear kitchen counter fills up with everything that was in the cooler and our snack bags, and I begin to despair about the state of the back seat of the car and its handfuls of crumbs. I am too tired to unpack, but no way can I leave the suitcases until morning, so somehow, in between getting the kids in the pajamas and putting together a late-night supper, I put all their clothes away and stash their suitcases. I unload the duffle bag with Isaac's blankies and Twilight Turtle and Suzannah's Twilight Ladybug and all the sunscreen and beach towels and extra diapers and Suzannah's kickboard. Somehow, I kept putting things away but the house still seemed to be strewn with stuff. So much stuff. (I have never, ever been able to go to sleep after a trip until I've unpacked at least most of everything and put it away.)

And then the blues set in. I wasn't quite ready to let go of this vacation -- I hadn't really felt quite ready to drive out of Montana the day before. I had a really gross sinus infection for a good part of this trip, but in almost every other important way it was a really healthy time for me. I stayed off Facebook entirely (good grief, I seriously need to do that more often) and only logged in to my e-mail three times in twelve days, because the thought of tons and tons of messages just piling up in my inbox made me a little nuts. I connected with people I love a lot, people I don't see often. I filled my lungs with the best air in the world, I dipped my toes in my favorite mountain lake, I went for solitary runs along quiet highways, I watched my children experience Old Faithful for the first time, I saw once again how loved and lucky we are, I had a long-overdue date night with my husband, I read good books. My cup was filled.

It's always a little strange, trying to settle back into normal. Especially late at night, with remnants of our trip sort of scattered all over the house, when I'm still feeling a slightly sticky layer of sunscreen on my skin, applied in a different city. When I've slept awkwardly against a car window and gotten a little carsick trying to read as we wound around over the pass.

So I was just sort of puttering around, unable to settle down and relax. I signed online, frittered around there for awhile. Glanced at the news. Learned that conditions were perfect for viewing a meteor shower after midnight.

I grabbed Matt's hand and said, "You have to come outside with me." And that's how we found ourselves lying on our backs on our rotting old (soon to be replaced) deck in the middle of the night, gazing up at the stars. Our neighborhood is quiet, but I could hear soft laughter from a few streets away; I wondered if people were out there with the same idea.

I tried not to think about spiders in my hair as my eyes adjusted to the night, and then I wondered why I don't spend more time lying on my back on my rotting old deck gazing up at the stars. It wasn't quite the same as appreciating the stars under a wide-open sky in the mountains of Montana, of course, but it was its own wonderful thing, framed by the outlines of the huge trees at the edges of our yard. And after a moment, I saw the first meteor, streaking across the inky sky.

We didn't stay outside long. We watched a handful of those meteors, those sudden little blazes of light, there and then gone. And then I sat up, rubbing my bare arms, kissed my husband, and went inside. Sometimes all it takes to beat the post-vacation blues is to notice something wonderful quite literally in my own backyard.

Just Breathe

“One thing about having a baby is that each step of the way you simply cannot imagine loving him any more than you already do, because you are bursting with love, loving as much as you are humanly capable of -- and then you do, you love him even more.”
― Anne Lamott

I did not expect to feel so emotional -- maybe even strangely heartbroken -- on my daughter's last day of kindergarten.

Her first day of kindergarten, sure. I spent all of last summer in a perpetual state of wanting to toss my cookies over the thought of sending my baby girl to kindergarten; I full expected to feel like a wreck that day. (Was it already a year ago that Matt and I left our daughter in a classroom with her new pink backpack and all her school supplies? Or, to be more accurate, were gently shooed away by her teacher after we'd taken pictures and grinned so hard our faces hurt, trying to be brave for our daughter? And staggered across the playground afterwards, slumped against each other, towards our car, towards the absurd real world that required us to go to work after that? It seems like that just happened. And yet so much has happened since then.) But we truly could have not asked for or been granted a more wonderful first year of school for our daughter. On the very first day -- before that, even, on the day of orientation, when we met her teacher -- I knew she would be okay. I knew she'd love it, I knew she'd be loved. I knew she'd just absolutely rock kindergarten.

So it has been great. I'm just blown away by the growth I've seen in my little girl this year, and I love her teacher and student teacher, and it's possible I may have been just a touch too effusive when wrote each of them a card a few days ago telling them just how grateful I am for everything they've done and for being so wonderful and nurturing and putting me instantly at ease way back in September. (Still, I'm also a teacher, and that kind of feedback means a lot to me, so.) It's possible that a part of me believed my daughter could just be in kindergarten indefinitely, with these wonderful teachers and this great little class and I wouldn't ever have to worry about her schooling ever again. I've been looking forward to the end of the school year for myself rather desperately, but I really didn't think much about the inevitable end for my daughter as well, and so this week that reality kind of punched me in the gut.

Both Suzannah and I had a short day on our last day of school; mine ended an hour before hers, so as soon as my day ended (at ten in the morning) I raced home to grab the camera before I walked to school.

I took pictures on the way, by myself. This is the path through the trees we've walked so many times this year. This is what it looks like on my girl's last day of kindergarten, the sun filtering through the leaves, shadows dancing on the ground. This is the huge, moss-covered tree she likes to touch. This is the little clearing where she picks tiny white flowers for me. I wanted to capture, somehow, the moment -- the afternoon, the sunshine. The moment that contained so many other moments.

I waited outside her classroom, squinting in the sunshine. When the bell finally rang, I actually felt tears pricking at my eyelids. I forced them back; they would have confused my daughter. They surprised me, a bit. Instead, I put on my brightest smile, I hugged my girl, and I took pictures of her with her teachers. We exchanged knowing glances. We made it!

(The end of the school year is always so bittersweet. Some years more bitter than sweet. I had a hard time saying good-bye to my seniors this year -- I really, truly loved that class. With any luck, though, I'll have my favorite juniors again next year. I'm so ready to let go of the rest, to get some distance, to recharge, to breathe.)

Ultimately, it's a good way to feel at the end of a year. It's good to feel the ache. It means it mattered. And it did.

***

In less important news, we are nearing the end of a kitchen remodel. We've both saved for and put off this project; it's never felt like something I needed, really, because increasingly I feel that it's far too easy to "need" things just because someone else tells us we need them. (This is why I love that my children don't watch real TV yet; I can still control, to some tiny little extent, the amount of children's marketing they encounter.) But also, it was time. Our kitchen was fine when we bought our house as eager young newlyweds moving into our first real home; nearly ten years later, I'm so ready to get rid of the awful wood veneer cabinets, the scratched-to-hell porcelain sink, the floor that's peeling up around the edges. Originally, we talked about the floor. Then about the counters. Finally, we just went ahead and decided to do the whole thing, because, as Matt said, we don't want to look back in a few years and wish we had.

It's going really well. I listened to far too many horror stories about kitchen remodels before we actually started. It would cost three times as much as we budgeted for! It would take at least twice as long as we expected, and probably more! They would trash our house! There would be dust absolutely everywhere, and we would spend the next month cleaning in the aftermath!

Fortunately, none of that has proved to be true. While we're tearing out pretty much everything, we're not reconfiguring our kitchen, we're not knocking out any walls, we're not messing with the plumbing or electricity -- it's pretty straightforward. Our contractor is a neighbor of my brother's, and we've enjoyed working with him. They tore out the old cabinets on Monday. New cabinets were installed on Tuesday and Wednesday, along with an over-the-range microwave that is going to pretty much double our counter space. Our new countertops went in today. The new floor will be installed on Monday. One week! Start to finish! And they haven't trashed our house! I'm so pleased with it; I know everyone always talks about how the kitchen is the most important thing in terms of resale and all, but we have no plans to move out of our cozy little home anytime soon and I really just want to love the kitchen in the house where we live. It's in the very center of our home, and I spend an awful lot of time in it, so this matters to me. And I'm so grateful we're able to do this now.

Also, I am really, really tired of eating out. That got old fast. It's funny; I kind of love eating out in general. I do. We do it about once a week, generally on Saturday nights, and I totally look forward to it, it's this totally self-indulgent thing for me or something, but we've been eating out (mostly out, with a few takeout meals eaten here) since Monday, and I'm sick of it. If this project had taken any longer, I'd plan more and use our slow cooker or the microwave, but I also hate the idea of washing food-crusted dishes in our bathroom. I can't wait to cook a real meal again. But I also get that this isn't a real problem.

***

So summer has begun, officially, even though today was cold and rainy. Both of my kiddos are a little under the weather, Isaac especially, with nasty coughs. Especially at night. Two days ago I was up with my son from two o'clock to four o'clock in the morning; he'd settle into bed only to wail for me five minutes later, and all he really wanted was to be held. So I rolled out of bed, again and again, wishing fiercely for the days when he still shared our bed and this was easier yet still, somehow, through my fatigue, cherishing the moment -- lifting him, feeling his arms around my neck, his breath on my cheek, rocking him, soothing him back into a fitful sleep. Late this afternoon he seemed so worn out, so content to lie on the couch with his blankies and his Raggedy Andy and one of the videos Suzannah chose at the library this afternoon; then, after pizza (delivery night, since Matt stayed out late with some of his coworkers) he revived, building an elaborate train track and a tent out of an old sheet with his sister. Both of them went to bed too late. But tomorrow is Saturday, and I do not have to grade any papers this weekend, and even if it is cold and rainy and my living room is full of my kitchen and my dining room table is covered with paper plates and our dish rack and coffee maker and a hundred other things, and even if we've had too much pizza this week, and the kids have runny noses and coughs, I can breathe.

I can really breathe.

What the kids are up to this week...

Miss Suzannah and I have spent a quiet week at home, and it's been really, really nice. Originally, I'd drawn up a list of Fun! Things! To! Do! this week, probably because I'm just really a huge fan of making lists -- I thought we'd go to Seattle Children's Museum, maybe, or do some huge fun art projects, or -- I don't know. I realized very quickly on Monday morning that what we really both needed was a week to just chill after two weeks of doing the opposite of chilling.

It was fun not-chilling, but the not-chilling meant that I don't think Suzannah had one real nap on vacation. I am almost afraid to write this lest I jinx it, but Suzannah has taken a real nap -- without drama -- every single day this week. She has even turned to me and said, "Mama? I take a nap?" And she actually meant it. Also, and this is almost too much for me, she has gone to bed easily every single night. And slept all night long. By herself. I don't even remember the last time this happened five nights in a row. She must be recovering from some wicked sleep deprivation. (I'm more inclined to believe that than to actually hope that this is her new pattern. We've just been burned too many times before. But we'll enjoy it while it lasts.)

I've been perfectly content to just go with the flow this week, without really planning some huge fun agenda. On Tuesday, we spent most of the morning and a good chunk of the afternoon with Kyanne at IKEA while we had the CR-V serviced (ouuuuch) and yesterday, Zannah and I went to the mall for a change of scenery and read a lot of books in the children's section at Borders. Then she wanted to look at magazines, so the two of us sat on the floor and read our own. I caught up on People (once in awhile I splurge and buy a copy, and Matt always makes fun of me and/or makes his scorn quite apparent, but you KNOW he always reads it when I bring it home) and Suzannah read...a bunch of nature magazines, I think, and also something about getting your novel published. Then she politely requested that we go to lunch.

Our Big Event this week was our "big" ultrasound, our anatomy scan for Baby #2. We brought Suzannah along so she could see the baby, and while I think most of it was a little abstract for her (she got bored with the close-up shots of the heart and kidneys and various limbs and focused on tickling my toes instead) she was very excited to see pictures of the baby, and she asked for them several times throughout the day. She says "Hi, Baby!" to my belly every day now (she has to lift up my shirt first -- reminds me a bit of her nursing days!), and she loves to touch it and rub lotion on it. (Sidenote: No, it doesn't matter how much I grease the belleh, so don't give me any advice on "preventing" stretch marks, please. If you're gonna get them, you're gonna get them. I thought I was safe when I was pregnant with Suzannah, so much so that I bragged noisily to a friend about not having a single one in my twenty-eighth week. Naturally, I woke up covered with them the very next morning. But whatever, I really like the lotion anyway.) Of course, then she lifts up her own shirt and jabs a finger at her belly button, announcing that she has a baby in her tummy too. Why not?

We read The Berenstein Bears' New Baby several times each day, which, in theory, should get Suzannah excited both about the baby and the new bed we're going to get her when we move the crib into the nursery. We're actually painting the nursery this weekend because I have this relentless need to Get Things Done; I'm reaching a point of panic here, with the school year approaching and all, and this is one manageable task we can take care of. Once we have paint on the walls, we can begin to put the room together and, more importantly, turn Suzannah's room into more of a little girl's room. (I say "more importantly" because if this baby is anything like Suzannah, we won't actually need the nursery for quite some time. But the room will look good.) We're losing our guest bed, due to an unforeseen, er, hiccup in our plans, but I allowed myself to stress about that for one afternoon only and I've made my peace with the fact that a.) it wasn't a great bed to begin with, as anyone who slept on it can attest to, and b.) for now, we'll have more room to organize everything that needs to be in that room. I imagine we'll replace it with something better in the next year or so, something that could actually be used as a regular bed for one of our children and guests.

Anyway, the ultrasound went well. I tend to go the route of fairly minimal prenatal care because I think so many of those "routine" things only serve to make women anxious or give the impression that they increase the odds of a good outcome, when of course they have nothing to do with it; I don't have betas drawn, I'm not a fan of more ultrasounds than are strictly necessary (with Suzannah I didn't even have a dating ultrasound, although this time I really wanted one to convince myself that there was actually a baby in there making me so sick), and we've declined all screens and tests. I did enjoy the ultrasound, though. I mean, it was fun to see the baby. I didn't have the same innocent excitement I had with Suzannah, and after carrying her I didn't have any expectations that I'd feel closer to my baby because of what we saw on the screen -- I felt Baby moving during the ultrasound (I didn't with Suzannah; I had it a few weeks earlier and hadn't felt much movement yet) and I was relieved, only because I felt reconnected with the baby after focusing on a screen. Frankly, it's strange to me to see my child above my head with someone else who doesn't know her talking to me about her, if that makes sense. But it was still good to see that everything is where it's supposed to be. Baby's growth is pretty symmetrical, and I'm measuring a few days ahead just like I did with Suzannah. The OB in the practice reads the results so I don't actually know much, but my midwife said she wouldn't be concerned; she talked to me about some of the numbers (cervix looks good, heartbeat is strong, fluid is fine, etc.) and said that the ultrasound tech usually leaves her a note if she finds anything of concern, which she didn't.

I will say that this baby was a wee bit more uncooperative -- and more wiggly -- than Suzannah was. It took quite awhile to get a good profile shot because Baby kept flinging her arms over her face; actually, it's exactly what Suzannah does now when we're trying to get her out of bed before she's ready to wake up. I could almost hear this child mutter, "Go away, I'm sleeping," just like her big sister. It's probably a good thing that we didn't try to find out the sex; I doubt she'd have appreciated the invasion.

The story of a house and its new little chef

When we bought our little 1960's ranch-style house a mere two months after we were married, it had recently been remodeled by the owner. Everything was crispy-new and smelled of fresh paint. It was a smart move on the owner's part, because it was like a blank canvas; I could immediately envision the place as ours.

Of course, it was awfully white. White walls, white baseboards, white door frames. I knew I'd want to paint eventually, although the thought intimidated me a bit as I'd never painted a room in my life. I helped my dad paint the trim on the outside of our house once, and once he made me stain a fence (do you see how I suffered?), but he claims that more paint made it on to my legs than the house. See, though, that's not a big deal when you're painting outside. So paint might get accidentally flung on the grass, or -- on one's little brother or something. Big deal. And okay, painting is pretty much the easiest home improvement ever and a monkey can do it, I KNOW, but it's an entirely different story when we're talking new carpet and wood floors and a completely neurotic, obsessive-compulsive neat freak.

Still, I finally worked up the courage to choose two colors for the living room. The only thing I had left to do was convince my husband that Memorial weekend would be a great time to paint. (I think I may have called it bonding.)

"But isn't the living room already painted?" he asked hopefully.

"It's all white," I explained, as though that should have been sufficient. When it failed to produce the desired response, I continued, "It's like living in a tooth."

Finally he agreed, and we painted the living room, and I loved it, and he loved it, and I wondered aloud eighty-five times how I could have lived in that house with that white living room for a whole entire year. ("It wasn't that bad," Matt said.)

[Edited to add: Matt just asked, "Did I really say that? That it's already painted?" And I said yes, baby, you really did. But then I felt compelled to point out that it doesn't even matter anymore, because according to my STORY, you did. He shrugged and said, "Well, I guess you're the doing the blogging, huh?"]

Gradually, we added colors to different rooms -- sage green in our bedroom, "sandstone cove" in the kitchen and family room (which is very light but still makes our base boards and door frames stand out nicely), and, when I was quite pregnant, a light, buttery yellow in what would become Suzannah's room. Our study is still white, mostly because neither one of us is particularly excited to move the desks and computers and bookshelves, and the guest room hasn't been touched, either. That's probably going to be my next project (and I'm thinking a light, dusty blue).

I was thinking about this today -- about the evolution of houses into homes. Paint is really only one part of that. I was just watching my daughter play this afternoon, and it occurred to me that our family room really has become her play room, and I love that. When we moved into this house, the family room contained one of the faded green love seats from the farm, our exercise bike, Matt's CD shelves, and the little 13-inch television I got for Christmas in college. Our "entertainment center" was really this wooden cart I bought at Office Max or Target. As a sophomore in college, it held the tower and printer to my computer next to my desk in my dorm, and when Carmen and I moved into our little college apartment, we kept the microwave on top of it. Our living room furniture consisted of the other faded green love seat and another old recliner from the farm. Suzannah's room had a futon and a closet full of camping gear.

Over the past few years, we've slowly replaced the old furniture with pieces we bought together: a couch and recliner for the living room, a new love seat for the family room. We bought a bigger TV and a modest but "real" entertainment center and moved the little 13-inch television and cart into the guest room. We gave away the futon and bought a crib and dresser. We bought shelves for the camping equipment and turned our storage room into a baby's room.

Now, our living room contains not only our comfortable "grown up" furniture and bookshelves but baskets of children's books and a tent. The family room holds a toy chest, a toy piano, a dollhouse, and Suzannah's brand-new wood kitchen. It's where Matt and I sprawl, legs tangled together, to watch movies after Suzannah goes to bed. It's where I nap with the pug in the afternoons, where I used to spend hours nursing my firstborn. It's where Suzannah watches Sesame Street and dances to Bruce Springsteen and The Ramones. It really is a family room, in every sense of the word. I love the way this house has told our stories. I don't know how long we'll be here; it's certainly not a huge house, and maybe I can't really see raising teenagers here, but it's exactly perfect for us right now. (Besides, when it seems like we have too much stuff for the space we have, my natural inclination is to want to clear out some of the stuff -- not move it into a bigger space where we'll accumulate more stuff.) I love the way it reflects the changes and growth in our family and becomes more and more ours.

So these things were on my mind as I was watching my daughter play this afternoon. Our latest addition to the family room is a beautiful wood play kitchen. It's something I wanted to give her for her second birthday, and I'd begun to check them out in a couple of toy stores in Seattle. Then, Matt's dad asked if we'd maybe like it if he built her one. And I'm all, are you kidding? That would be amazing.

So they brought it with them to Montana and we managed to fit it into the back of our CR-V, and now it has earned a spot in our family room, between our hutch and Suzannah's toy chest. It's completely beautiful. I knew it would be, but it surpassed every expectation I had. I mean, it embodies the term "labor of love." And Suzannah loves it a lot. Yesterday was fairly low-key in that we didn't go anywhere, we just hung around the house trying to readjust to being here, and Suzannah spent a lot of time cooking for Mama. Her grandparents also gave her a nice little assortment of pots and pans and utensils, so she made several batches of "soup." She strolled around the family room, wandering in and out of the study, merrily banging a spoon around inside one of the pans.

"What are you making this time?" I asked her.

She marched up to me, thrust the spoon at my mouth. "Try," she commanded.

So I did, and then she stuck the spoon in her own mouth. "Mmm, nummy!" she said.

"Yummy soup," I agreed.

"No." She shook her head. "Roni." She leaned forward for emphasis. "Roni." Her mother is slow to catch on, I guess, because I thought we were still on soup, but clearly this was a batch of macaroni and cheese, whoops, yep, I can definitely tell now.

"Macaroni," I said. "Nummy."

"Roni," she said again, smiling. And then she demanded that I take another bite.