Category Archive

Gwyneth Bean is six and a half years old. She’s always been a little feisty and we always thought she’d make a kick ass outdoor cat. My family had lost too many cats to cars and thus at some point decided to keep them in. And A and I never lived in a place where we could let her out. So she stayed in, chased blowing leaves by running from window sill to window sill, sat by the doors and meowed to go out, always keeping the illusion of a cat who wanted to get out. There was one time when she escaped and went missing for 11 days. It was June 17, 2003. I was devastated. 11 nights later, as I walked home I heard her cry as she ran towards me, never so happy to see me. She’s been in ever since.

Bean and her brother Mr. Lou spent a year at my parents house when they were three years old. A and I could not have them at my new job (where we had to live on a college campus). During that time Bean managed to win my father over and destroy all of the framing around the door ways with her gymnastic routines - running and shimmying up the frame, climbing higher with every claw sunk in the wood. And my parents tolerated this… I managed to change the pet policy and our cats came to live with us the next year. And my parents began renovations on their house, which included all new door frames.

Mr. E arrived. Our ability to play with, let alone meet the minimal needs of our cats was pathetic. Mr. Lou was sick and we had to out him down with in weeks of Mr. E and Bean, well she got used to how things were. But she’d still pester us now and again. As we settled into life with our boy we were able to bring her back into the picture providing her with proper playing time, remembering to feed her, change her box, etc. And when we decided to move into my parent’s house, we decided we’d grant what seemed to be her life long dream of being an out door cat. Ideally she’d get her crazies out outside and just sleep indoors.

The first morning we were here A took her to be sure she was up on all her vaccinations. I wanted to wait a few days before letting her out so she would acclimate to her new home and be able to find her way back. And then she got a running start that ended at the top of a door frame. Out she went. She had no idea what hit her. She gingerly walked across the grass and literally circled the house, not straying more than two feet from the physical structure. And then she wanted to come back in.

She never asks to go out. Not even on the beautiful sunny days. (Ok, she’s so obsessed with us that once she asked to go out when A was outside walking Mr. E. And then we forgot she was out till after dark.) Other than that, she goes out when she’s bad, which is just about every morning. I know right when she’s gearing up for a climb and I will say “No Bean!” She’ll usually cry back and then do it.

A and I are flabbergasted that going outside is a punishment, when she’s spent almost seven years desperately trying to get outside. All this time I thought we were being so mean, forcing her to stay in, and now she likes it. In some ways I don’t blame here. She’s comfortable and all her needs are taken care of inside. But it’s still shocking given her behavior.

The grass is always greener. I think my cat is here to remind me of this.

As A says, “we’re on the sandbar.” It’s been a little more than a week since we managed to pack all our belongings (ok, most, we had to part with some items that would not fit) into a UHaul and drive away from the place we moved to five years ago, with every intention of setting down roots and raising a family. We were sad as we drove away, in separate vehicles, A with the over stuffed UHaul, me with the baby. We’ve made the same trip East, hundreds of time since moving there but I can’t describe the feeling of leaving it all behind. There are things we’ll miss, friends we’ll miss, places we’ll miss, but our lives here feel full in ways that kept coming up short there.

The whole process has been quite over-whelming. The week leading up to the move may go down as one of the most stressful. Ever. Let’s just say that together we experienced enough transitions to last a few years. In all there were only two melt downs (one for each of us) and our boy was perfect. Moving day, while always exhausting, went quickly when many of my co-workers and students and A’s former co-workers descended on us. Mr. E was bounced from person to person while our truck was loaded. And many helping hands meant our stuff was packed into the truck rather quick. My heart warmed having so many people show up to help us.

We spent an exhausting three days unpacking and getting set up, while also working through the emotions that come with such a transition. In the middle of those three days we attended an orientation for the church we planned on joining. Crazy? Yes. The orientations are only offered four times a year and are a required step in becoming a member. We want to have Mr. E dedicated (this is Unitarian Universalist for baptized) over the summer, and while we could have him dedicated without being members, my catholic guilt wouldn’t let me. Heck, what was one more thing in the middle of all we were doing?

By Sunday night A and I were unpacked and starting to feel somewhat normal. We are very comfortable in our new home, at my parent’s house (for those wondering, we passed on the condo. There are too many financial unkowns for us at this time). We have a good relationship with them and it’s very nice to have built in babysitters, support, and let’s not forget the hot tub! That was essential after moving boxes all weekend!

I started my part time job on Monday. I am working for my father helping to run his business. So far I’ve mostly been organizing the office (it’s a NIGHTMARE) and also have started looking into some really cool techy marketing tools. I love my job- you’ve NEVER heard me say that before! I love that it’s stress free, that it’s flexible and part time, and that it allows us to work my hours around A’s hours, thus avoiding daycare. And I am enjoying what I am doing. I mean, one project I am working on is kind of like blogging!

A started her job on Tuesday. She’s enjoying having structure again and has already begun networking with the elementary school principals. She left one meeting with the principal trying to create a part time job utilizing A’s experience working with English Language Learners. She needs to get her foot in the door some how and this would do it! Everything is just coming together for us in ways we never imagined possible.

Mr. E had a very difficult growth spurt last week. It was by far our worst night. He cried, no screamed all night, unless one of us was holding and bouncing him. A couple times we’d trick him into thinking we were standing and bouncing when really we were laying down and bouncing him while he laid across our chests. He never slept more than an hour like this. He wore himself out and finally went to sleep in his crib from 7-11am. The next couple of days he remained crabby, but now he’s back to his cheerful, mellow self. He’s loving having his cousins around all the time -he and J, who are five months apart are too cute together and so interested in each other.

It was a long process to get here, and we remain in a semi-permanent transitional period until A finds a teaching job and we’re able to buy a condo, but it’s all working so well and we have no regrets about our decision to move. We’re so happy to be able to raise Mr. E with family. And to be in a place where we already feel woven into the community in such a short time.

My head is spinning. Several weeks ago A and I looked at a condo in the town we want to live in once we move. We’ve pretty much decided when we’re ready to buy, we’d buy into this particular complex. There’s a lot of open green space, it’s a good size with all the things we’re looking for. And we’d get much more for our fee than any other place. Most charge the same monthly fee and all you get are exterior maintenance, master insurance, snow removal, etc. This place has a club house with a gym, indoor/outdoor pool, tennis courts, sauna, hot tub… all for the same fee range as the condos without the club house. It’s kind of a no brainer.

We looked at two condos in this complex. We loved loved loved one of them. It was an end unit, has two and a half baths, two bedrooms, two floors, attic and shed storage, laundry, wood floors in the kitchen and hall, a gas stove in the living room, sky lights in the bedrooms. It’s freshly painted and beautiful. And out of our price range. But alas, we were only looking to get a sense of what’s out there, until we’re ready to buy.

Well this morning, while A was dealing with two Crai.gslist people, one to take our piano and another to take a floor lamp, my dad calls. The realtor called him to let him know he has advised the sellers to drop the price and he also told them about a nice young gay couple with a new baby who loved the condo, but couldn’t afford the asking price. Now, the current owners are two sisters (and by this I mean they share a mother) who inherited the condo from them mother. Their response? “Sure, we’ll knock off $20,000 for them, our mother loved gay people!” And they’d be willing to push out the closing into the summer too.

Ummmmmm. Whaaaaaaaaaat? So essentially the message from the realtor is that he’s not advertising the new price until we get back to him. Because, at the new price it will sell. In an instant. And we have first refusal, or something like that. I’ve crunched some numbers and even with the new price it’s a little bit of a stretch given my part time employment and A’s transitional job. BUT, we could totally swing it if she had a teaching job. Which she is working very hard on obtaining.

I already feel nuts: returned to work after 12 weeks maternity leave, gave notice four days later, leaving us two and a half weeks to pack up and move, with a three month old (and we’ve yet to line up any real help…). And now we have to make this decision by tomorrow. And really it’s such a good deal that if we can’t swing it I will be so so so depressed.

I have 13 more days at the job I’ve come to dislike.

I gave my notice today, after being back for four days…

Soon, so very soon, Mr. E will be my full time job again. I can’t wait to get back to being with him all day instead of going to work.

This also means we are moving soon. Last day of work will be April 23rd. We’re moving April 24th.

I am so happy. So relieved.

There doesn’t seem to be time in the day to write proper blog posts anymore. I guess I knew this was coming. My head is overcrowded with thoughts right now.

• For about a month I’ve been working on a post about Mr. E’s biological siblings. I will finish it, some day, but the short version is that we’ve connected with three more families and met two more kids. They live two towns away from us!
• Not being able to fully blog about what’s going on with regard to the thing I don’t want to do has made me realize just how much I use this blog for therapy. Some day soon I will spill the whole story. Maybe.
• We’ve sold most of our possessions on Craig.slist. I have sticky notes on my computer reminding me who is coming when, for what, and how much they are paying. This is a full time job. Oh and I am back at in on eBa.y again too.
• Things we do not need between now and the move are slowly being packed each night.
• I’m trying to accept that even if I do lose the remaining 10 pounds, my pre pregnancy clothes probably will never fight right.
• But I am keeping them in a box labeled “pre preg. Long term storage.” Just in case.
• And while I am talking about weight, can I just say, who’s body do I live in now?
• He’s worth it.

Real posts to come. Someday. Maybe.

I try hard not to write too much about work or at least not in too much detail, since this is the internet and all… so this is going to be a little cryptic.

Mr. E will be 11 weeks on Wednesday.

There’s been something I’ve been dreading doing. I’ve blogged about how much I don’t want to do it. Recently there have been many conversations in our home and with my family about what I don’t want to do.

After talking it out and looking into our options it appears as though I may not have to do the thing I really don’t want to do. Well sort of. I may have to do it for three or so weeks.

This means things are happening a lot faster than planned…and we need to get going on packing…if you know what I mean?!

Extreme Nesting has come to an end! A and I spent today, the last day of our vacation, sorting through our kitchen, which was the last project on our list. Since we started Extreme Nesting some time last fall we have:

• Begun selling furniture we don’t need/want
• Moved three car loads of our stuff and our two kayaks into storage on the Cape
• Organized all our files
• Donated books galore
• Downsized from two desks to one
• Donated any and all clothes that we don’t wear/no longer fit
• Gotten rid of so many “things” we don’t need/want - I have yet to blog about my new love affair with e.Bay
• Sorted through both bathroom’s cabinets - purged old medicines and other crap we don’t need
• Picked through all our food cabinets and tossed expired food, married spices, organized, and vowed to create meals with the food we already have
• Sorted out the kitchen gadgets and donated the stuff we don’t use - our kitchen is so much more manageable now!

As we completed each project we cleaned the area before putting away the items we’re keeping. This place is clean and only contains the stuff we use! It feels so amazing and makes the Move feel manageable. I even packed an entire box of stemware today! It was pretty surreal to pack and label a box when we have 5 1/2 more months before we move! But the more we do now, the less we do with an infant!

In the last week I’ve also begun to make some progress on crafting things for the baby. I’ve been wanting to knit a hat for Moon to wear home from the hospital. Lucky for me, I woke at 5am most morning while we were at my parents so one morning I knit this:

And then I realized we didn’t have any burp cloths for the baby, and after spending time with our very pukey nephew, I conceived the idea of sewing burp clothes. I’ve only just started and have a bit more fabric to work with but here’s what I’ve sewn so far:

In addition to the Extreme Nesting over the last few months we’ve also managed to get almost everything ready for when the baby arrives:

• The room is set, the clothes, linens, etc. are washed and put away by size, and the changing table is stocked with all the baby necessities
• Car seats are installed
• The paper work to add Moon to my health insurance is as filled out as it can be
• Moon’s bag is packed for the hospital, we have the list ready of things we need to pack for ourselves, and all legal documents are tucked in Moon’s bag (marriage certificate, name change paperwork, health care proxy, emergency temporary guardianship paperwork)
• Toured the Birth Center at our hospital (loved it, and l-o-v-e-d the birthing tub)
• Last name change is complete and all those that need to know have been notified
• Project Legalize Everything is still underway - we have some second parent adoption paperwork left to finish, but our wills and powers of attorney are pretty much set

We are READY for the baby to arrive. I can’t think of anything else we need to do. Okay there is one thing, we need to attach the co-sleeper to our bed, but we have a plan to do that this week with the help of a friend. So Moon, anytime you want to arrive, after this Thursday (37 week mark), we’ll be waiting!

A is currently sorting through our CDs, weeding out the ones we can get rid of. This one was too precious not to share. It’s a circa 2000 mix from my brother. The message from him reads:

E.,

Music for your computer. It won’t work in a regular CD player. Use it in your CD drive. You may have to download “windows” winamp player.

Enjoy.

Love,

T.

Winamp?! Seriously! And why has it been sitting next to our CD player forever?! Sorting through CDs has been the most humorous of all our sorting projects.

Okay, so after my whiny post about my swollen self I did get up make a pancake breakfast. It was yummy but then my feet/legs hurt again so I went back to my elevated leg position. But there is still extreme nesting to get done and time is running out. (As my dear dear friend who lives in Alaska and is a labor and delivery nurse said to me “oh we see women having babies at 34 weeks all the time.” Then last night she said “so you’re trying to hold out at least another three weeks?” No, I am hoping for at least another five or six more weeks!!!!)

Today’s project: sort through books. Donate the ones we’ll never read again and box up the ones we want to keep (we have a long list of things we’re hauling to my parent’s house when we visit for Christmas, and books are on that list. The majority of our books are in the craft room, which I should really start calling the packing room since it’s mostly cleaned out and just has piles of things we’re keeping just waiting to be boxed up. The reason I tell you this is so you understand there’d be no place for me to sit in that room. So, I sat, feet up in the living room on the first floor, signed into iChat (video), while A signed into iChat upstairs. She’d pick up a book and we’d evaluate it. The criteria for remaining in our lives is pretty simple, will we ever read it again? We’re getting rid of sooooooooooo many books (and a huge bookshelf), I am so excited to not move them AGAIN! We’ve moved many of these books four times.

So, yeah, I pretty much think this whole we’re having a baby and moving across the state thing has really turned into some material worthy of our own reality show. The only thing left to do is our kitchen. I can’t tell you how good it feels to de-clutter our lives. Once the kitchen is done we can move onto the more tasky things left on the “to do” list.

We’ve begun the at-times-overwhelming task of beginning to clean out and downsize our lives. It’s true that you grow to fill the space you live in and we currently live in a two story, four bedroom apartment. It’s huge. Any place we move to will not be this big. So we’re trying to clean up and throw out / donate whatever we can now, before Moonbeam arrives as it will nearly impossible after.

We’ve committed to spending some amount of time every Sunday until the project is complete. Last weekend it started with sorting through clothing. We filled three bags to donate and A still has more clothing to sort through. This weekend we purged our storage closet and hauled many bags of trash to the dumpster (many of the items being things we’ve moved from place to place - new rule is if we haven’t used it since the last move then it goes).

We’ve got a handful of items and some furniture to post on Crai.gs Li.st and all our camping gear is pulled out and ready to be packed in the car for me to take to my parent’s house next weekend. Not only are we purging but we’re also trying to slowly move to my parents anything we know we won’t use between now and the move so as to make the move as easy as possible with a five month old. Camping gear is the first to go… We have a ways to go till we’ve cleared out and downsized but it feels really good to start the process and know that much of the work will be done before the big move.