TODAY IS A NEW DAY

I forgot to mention that we also celebrated our tenth wedding anniversary! Our anniversary was the same day as our closing for the new house, so it was a bit busy to say the least. We did our final walk thru in the morning, drove to Latham for the closing, and then arrived “home” to start cleaning. PErhaps it wasn’t the most romantic of celebrations, but I do think it’s pretty cool that we bought each other a new house for the ten year mark!

We are in the new (old) house.  We are here, living with odd sleeping arrangements while upstairs floors are being refinished, piecing together a new life with various odds and ends of stuff from our old one, making due with what we have this day, while we wait for the rest of our belongings to arrive and be unpacked sometime in the (hopefully) near future.  We are all, relatively, unscathed by the move.  Except for Charlotte, who has taken to defecating in the house and generally being a big pain in the bum. 

Let it be known that moving is not easy.

In the space of time that occurred between my last post and this one, we have:

1. Celebrated Emma’s THIRD birthday

2.  Said goodbye to our home of over five years

3. Had a lovely end of summer vacation at Lapland Lake

4. Celebrated Emma’s very first day of preschool

5.  Celebrated Harry’s first day of Pre-K

6.  Walked to the balloon festival from our new-old house

7.  Shuffled back and forth to different beds no fewer than six times while waiting for closings and for our floors to be refinished (stinky oil poly)

8.  Welcomed the new West baby to the world.  Congrats, Jeremy and Michele, and big siblings Isaac and Isabelle.  We can’t wait to meet the new little guy!

It’s been a busy few weeks and we are, understandably, kind of exhausted.  We’re hoping to get back on track now that we are finally living in our house.  We have a million things to do but most importantly we are trying to maintain some sort of schedule, some sort of sanity and security for our kids whose lives have been so disrupted these past few weeks.  Soon, I tell myself, soon.

Summer has arrived in all of its steamy, sticky glory and we are glad for it!  After nearly two solid months of rain, days spent poolside and frolicking in fountains seem extra sweet, and our little ones drift off to sleep at night with bodies that are bone tired and happy smiles on their faces.  Ahh, summer days…we’ve missed you.

We have-a-hawk! 

Actually, we have a hawk family.  They seem to reside in one of our old oak trees and they have pretty much eradicated our chipmunk population, which we estimated to be in the hundreds, if not thousands (lots of dead wood in these woods, left by the builder).  We’ve also noticed that our flying squirrels have either relocated or worse and our garage doesn’t seem to have any mice this summer.  All good things in my book. 

Now, if only we could teach the hawks not to scream at each other all morning we might get to sleep past 7am!

When mom and I went to Korea to bring Emma home we had the opportunity to rock the babies at the intake hospital at Eastern.  The baby boy that we rocked the most was a bit older than the other babies because he bad been quite ill when he was first born, and as such had been held and loved by the nannies for months instead of the typical days or weeks.  Most of the other babies in the room were days old, tiny and sweet, but this boy was plump and cute and better able to demand out attention.  We took turns rocking him until we needed to put ourselves to bed, and then he was placed back into his bassinet.  Hanging over his tiny little bed was a mobile, light and delicate and perfect.  It was so simple, just yellow origami paper folded into cranes and strung on thread, but I never forgot it, nor the baby whose early life was spent sleeping beneath it.  I still wonder where he is.

On Saturday I had a Mommy Date with Emma and we wanted to find something to keep us busy during these looooong rainy days.  We were looking for lino block printing supplies, but instead we came home with origami paper.  We made our own crane mobile:

Ours is certainly not as dainty or refined as the one in Korea, but I love its color.  What you cannot tell from the picture is that it is constantly in motion…it softly twirls and sways on the slightest of breezes.  The top of the mobile is a branch from our maple tree.

You can see another crane mobile here (scroll down to see photos).

A couple of hours ago friends of ours went to JFK and met their son for the very first time.  They are on their way home now, the last leg of the journey their little guy has made from the other side of the world to his new home and the first precarious steps of their journey together as a family.  As Harry said, this is a Big Day and I am so happy for you, Stephanie, Jay, and Jack!  Don’t forget to eat and sleep, and remember that this is going to get easier as you all figure each other out.

As I was tucking Harrison into his bed tonight I told him how happy I am to be his mom, how much happiness he brings to my life and how much joy he fills my heart with.  And I wished him a happy airplane day, because four years ago today was the day he flew to the US to join our family.  He smiled, looked into my eyes and said “Happy airplane day for you, too, Mom.  It was a big day.  A happy and sad day, wasn’t it?”  And I said yes, it was both happy and sad. 

My dear Harrison, so wise beyond your years, I love you. 

 These shots aren’t the greatest because I was fighting a mostly dead set of camera betteries, but someone told me I have been negligent in my sharing of photos of the kids so I’ll post them anyway:

E:  “Mom, you have really pretty arm hair.  Just so you know. ”

 H:  “Thanks for that kiss, Mom.  I’ve been waiting for a kiss for hours and hours and hours.”

E: (stamps foot and grunts) “I tired of all this packing.  I hate this packing.”

H:  “When I grow up I’m going to be a firefighter.  And Spiderman.  One can be my dayjob.”

E:  “When I grow up I want to be a purple kitty cat.  Mommy?  You know I like kitty cats?  You know I like them a LOT?”

H:  “Do you think our house is going to float away?”  (he asked this one with a grave look of concern on his little face as he watched the rain pour down in sheets for the 24th day last month)

H:  “When I was a little kid I didn”t know how to climb the ropes at the playground, but now I’m all grown up!”

E:  “I’m having a tough day with you, Mommy.  You been bad girl.”  (this after we went hiking, played at the playground, went out for lunch, and spent the afternoon playing t-ball in the yard.  I give up.)

H:  “When I grow up I’m going to be the drummer in Uncle Brent’s band, ’cause the drummer he has now is old.  Like, reeeeeaaaally old.”

E:  (wearing sunglasses) “Do I look like a rock star now?”

H:  “This summer is wearing me out.”

H:  “They have lots of neat animals in Africa, Mom.  We should go there on Daddy’s next vacation.”  (watching too much Mama Mirabelle?)

E:  “It bedtime yet?  I’m exhausted of this day.”