home sweet (plastic) home

So we have moved, and we are semi-settled. Meaning that the kitchen is unpacked, I know how to get to Walmart without a map, and we can't step into our third bedroom because it's still so full of boxes.

For most intents and purposes, life as I have known it for months and/or years has come to a screeching, abrupt halt. Kind of a combination of the end of a busy school year, finally being done with renovations/cleaning/packing/moving, and relocating to a place where we live 5 miles from the nearest (small) town. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but it is taking some getting used to. There's only so long I can play with play-doh and watch the same Dora DVD before my brain starts to fry. I go through this to some degree every summer as I adjust to being off. And really, I am thrilled to have a couple of months to spend uninterrupted time with my ever-changing hoodlums. They still change so fast it's ridiculous, and they say and do things every day that make Scott and I laugh and shake our heads in amusement. Noah has made himself the "hat police"--he becomes extremely concerned if Scott seems to be heading off to work without his hat. Lily is currently convinced that every animal we see is either a baby who wants its mommy, or a mommy who wants her baby. Every animal. Squirrels, birds, ducks, whatever. And then we have to have a lengthy discussion about it. Every animal. Every time.

For those who are curious, here's a picture of our new digs:

It's not exciting, but it definitely works. It's been very interesting to me, moving into a manufactured house--I've never lived in one before. Some things seem just as sturdy as a "regular" house, and some things just don't. But it's in really good shape, and just a tiny bit smaller than our old house. It shares several acres with a few other small houses, owned by a sweet Vietnamese lady (and her dog, named Charlie--haven't quite figured that one out yet).

Small-town life is going to take some getting used to, although in a good way. People are ridiculously friendly, to the point that I just want to stare at them. Yesterday we took some cookies to our landowner (she gave us a squash last week), and we ended up being pretty much forced inside her house. She fed us fruit and grape juice on her couch while she sat on the floor, and insisted that the kids each take home a large stuffed animal (she had several--not sure why). Today I took the kids to the park and we were instantly adopted by an older couple who were there with their grandson. They helped my kids around on the equipment, told me their names and address, and said that if I ever come by, to go straight around to the back door--they can't hear it when people knock in the front.

See? Ridiculous! I could get used to it though. As long as the small-town drama doesn't turn out to be too bad.

So... so far so good in the land of Bastrop. Tomorrow's adventure: church!

like it never even happened

In case there were any doubts, let me clarify: I don't like moving.

I mean I really, really don't like it.

I don't like making decisions in general. It feels like way too much power. (Doesn't somebody else know better than me how many kids I should have? Seriously.) And moving is kind of a biggie, especially when it's voluntary.

And then there's the preparation. Deciding when to make it "official". Getting your house ready to sell. Getting it even MORE ready to sell. Cleaning, cleaning, and cleaning some more. Keeping it spotlessly clean for showings, on top of everything else that already kept me busy till late in the evenings. Accepting the reality that you only have a few weeks left in your house, and all that must be done in that time. Finding a new house. Moving into that one. Cleaning it. Cleaning the old one! Driving back and forth. Saying goodbye to each facet of our old life, piece by piece by piece.

It is hard, and busy, and just sad. And, I realized today, it feels kind of insulting. To move out and clean out every piece of our life, as if it was never here. To look at our house now, nobody lives here. No dogs ever ran in and out with muddy feet and shed profusely all over. No babies crawled to the wall and left handprints as they pulled themselves up. Nobody accomplished anything, made anything, or did anything. Nobody talked or fought or loved. Nothing happened.

A house is just a house, I guess. It's just a place. But it's a very personal place. (Sort of like underwear.) The things we did here left messes and scuffs and stains. And to have to scrub my family out of the floors and wipe us off the walls so completely feels a little unjust, I think. I know it has to happen, and I wouldn't want to move into anybody else's dirty house, of course. Selling a house just turns an extremely personal place into a commodity, and it just feels wrong all the way around it.

And in two days it won't be ours anymore. A new family will come and make their own scuffs and marks as they live and love here. And it will be their home just as much as it was ours. And that's okay.

It just makes me sad.

a little birthday bashing goes a long way

Okay, I've given up. The twins turned 2 almost a MONTH ago, and we had their birthday party two weeks before that. And I STILL have not documented it here. Of course, selling a house, finishing out a very busy school year, and moving into a new house don't leave a lot of time for extra things. So my perfect birthday post is just not going to happen. Instead, you get the smattering of pictures that I managed to upload a few weeks ago, before my lack of free time truly spiraled out of control. I think I can get the basic idea across, although there was so much more that happened...

Noah checking out his birthday cake, mid-creation. He was very handsy.



Noah's train, and Lily's butterfly cake.


Despite hours of practicing for the big moment with bubble wands, Lily could not be convinced to blow out her candles with an audience.



Noah could! His aim was worse, though, on account of his grabby arms having to be held down.


For those interested, red food coloring comes out with Oxi clean pre-wash spray!

Family birthday portrait. This is when we figured out that Lily could smile on command.

Lily with her Gemma and her stash of presents, birthday bashers in the background.

And Grandad, about half an hour post-party:

who's in charge here, anyway?

I just realized that I made it the entire month of May without making a single post. AND IT WAS THE KIDS' BIRTHDAY! Sigh. I have pictures and stuff, I promise. Balloons and cake and the whole lot. I'll get to it someday.

But right now my motive is different: Just wanted to get something funny down on virtual paper before I forget about it.

Lest we all forget, potty training is still in full swing around here. The kids are slowly getting better--they usually only have about one potty accident a day. Noah has yet to decide that pooping should occur outside his pull-up, and Lily sometimes gets creative on where she puts her #2's. (Today's location: the back porch step.)

Anyway, along that vein, Scott decided in his random, spur-of-the-moment humor kind of way, to tease the kids by pretending to poop in the stroller. Lily became quite upset, squealing, "No, Daddy!" in an anguished voice as she pointed in the general direction of the bathroom.

Noah took a more hands-on approach, inspecting Daddy's pants for poo-poo.

Not finding any, he ran to the bathroom and removed the kiddie seat, then yelled, "Daddy! Poo-poo potty!" to get him to come and use the appropriate outlet.

All in all, hysterical. What did we ever do without kids?

bubble-icky

I believe we have sufficiently answered the question: "Why did it take them so long to invent colored bubbles?

April is for backtracking

I was organizing some pictures tonight, and realized I hadn't posted any pictures to the blog in quite a while... oops. Wouldn't everybody rather read my semi-morose ramblings than look at pictures of cute kiddos? Obviously.


But in case you're bored, here are some pictures as well:

We got to see Gemma and Granddad for a little while a couple weeks ago, down in Bastrop. There's a park there, with a lively (and cracker-loving) waterfowl population.

On the way home, we found an awesome bluebonnet field, where we got the picture at the top of the blog (obviously). We were lucky to get just one picture--the kids weren't really enthused about photography. We got a couple good shots, and then had to convince them there was a bunny hiding in the flowers to make them look interested.

Grandma sent the kids a box full of Easter-y goodies. Including an outfit with matching hat (guess which part was Lily's favorite), and some punch balloons. The balloons were an instant hit:

My college roommate Laura and her family came to visit from Illinois. They didn't come to visit me, necessarily, but since they were only an hour away visiting Laura's sister Shawna and her new baby Trey, we spent some time with them. We went to a community easter egg hunt, which was fun--if a bit hot and humid. I was careful not to point out that there was candy in the eggs until the hunt was over--otherwise I'm sure they would have stopped after the first egg!

toddlerisms

Okay, I gotta write down some things before I forget them:

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We have a couple of "boo-boo bunnies" --cloth ice cube holders for putting on ouchies. Back in my naive, early-mom days, I thought that we'd be using them all the time by now, but I was wrong. Ever tried to get a toddler to hold an ice pack to a boo-boo? It doesn't happen. They want to hold it and play with it, and leave it somewhere for the dog to chew its ears off. But we're getting there, so when Noah fell the other day and hit his ear hard enough against the railing of the porch that it began to swell, I got out the bunny.

Noah wasn't all too interested in holding it to his ear, as usual. But Lily was fiercely jealous, and started demanding, "Boo-boo baa-ey! Boo-boo baa-ey!" I told her she could have the bunny sometime later, when she got a boo-boo.

Hearing this, Lily sprang up from the porch step, ran over to the railing, and bashed her head (gently, but with gusto) against the wood. The look on her face as she braced for impact is something I hope I remember forever. She was none too pleased when I still denied her the bunny, even after such self-sacrifice!

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Both kids want to be just like us, and that is especially true of Daddy. Since he has been exercising a lot at home lately, they have seen him do a lot of workouts at home. Watching Noah try and jump over a jumprope is completely hysterical--not only can he not jump, but he can't begin to swing the rope. He just sort of spasms, and giggles about it. Lily is more interested in lying on the exercise mat and doing "crunches". Or something. She makes a big show about sitting down, and then lifts her legs in the air over and over. Sometimes she gets up and sits back down again to start over, for good measure.

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Lily has been very interested in identifying emotions these days, particularly "happy" and "sad". Recently Noah's Elmo cup has had to go to time out during dinner, since he keeps sticking his fork into the straw. One of these times, I pointed to Elmo on the cup and said, "Look--you made Elmo sad, because he's in time out." Both kids stared doubtfully at the obvious grin on Elmo's face, and Lily protested, "Ehmo 'appy!"

"No, no," I said. "Elmo is said, because he's in time out."

She looked at me, then at Elmo. Then she blew a kiss toward the cup and said, "Ehmo 'appy!"

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At bedtime, Noah and Lily wear pull-ups. Noah's have two varieties based on the movie Cars--one just has Lightning McQueen, and one has both McQueen and 'Mater the tow truck. Owing, I suppose, to his love of trucks, he refuses to wear the ones that only have a car on them. Since we have about 30 of them, I keep trying to trick him into wearing them by just having him put a pair on without pointing out the picture. He is ever-vigilant though, and always checks for the requisite truck. If there is only a car, he says "Uh-oh!" very importantly, like he's discovered some huge oversight. Then he runs to the drawer of pull-ups and rummages around until he finds the kind he wants. "There!" he says, very satisfied with himself for having corrected such a terrible error.

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Tonight we played outside after dinner until bath time. Lily wet her pants just before we came inside, so we took them off when we came in. I then announced that it was time to take a bath, and Lily went running off in the direction of the bathroom with more than the usual excitement.

A minute later, as I was trying to herd Noah toward the tub as well, I heard anguished cries coming from down the hall. I went to the bathroom, which was dark, and flipped on the light. The ensuing sight was a bit of a shock--Lily had bent herself headfirst into the tub and gotten stuck. Her feet dangled barely off the floor, with her bare bottom (etc.) in prominent view. I had to leave her there long enough to run and grab the camera, even though I obviously can't share the picture outside the immediate family! She's going to hate me for that one in a few years...