Silence

Silence is golden, so it is said.  When all three kids are screaming at me, at each other and generally making a fuss, I dream about silence.  I actually leave the house and spend weekends away from them, basking in the cool glow of silence.  Until recently, I would have rhapsodized about silence.  It's milky whiteness, the way it softly and warmly embraces you and steals away all the anxiety.

Certainly there are some folks that equate silence with loneliness.  Being alone with their thoughts is too horrible for many to contemplate.  They leave the tv or radio on, so that there is noise and company.  I am not one of them.  I can understand where they live, as until I had children, I lived there too.  Now, I am firmly not in that camp anymore.

Last year, I asked to use the bathroom, while pooping, by myself.  I wanted to poop in peace, for a whole week.  I really didn't think that this was an outlandish period of time, and it was all I wanted for my birthday.  The kids could not deliver on this wish. 

As of Wednesday, I have had both boys in school for 6 hours a day.  My house is so quiet, it is eerie.  It is like no one is home.  To go from the racous, ear blasting noise of the summer to total silence is almost deafening.  I am not alone.  Hannah is here with me.  She still has her various needs and wants that have to be tended to, but for the most part she plays happily by herself in the play room.

I have the entire expanse of the day to do what I want to do, for the most part.  It is like a taste of when they will all be in school all day long.  What will I do with myself?  Hannah is a willing participant in most activities,  if I want to go out to lunch with the ladies, shopping, out for coffee, Hannah is game.  She is very well behaved and will sit and color or look at her ponies for a long enough period of time that I really can take her anywhere.  It will be an interesting year, as I decide what to do with my new found freedom.

Out of the Swimming Pool and into the Car Pool

Well, it has happened. I for one would like to offer up a trade. We will trade this week for a week to be named later. Can I place this week on the DL list? For which I might have to call up a week from the farm team. I keep hearing, sung softly in the background... the party is over. You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here.

Since having children in school, the end of Summer Vacation, had usually evoked such joyous feelings that it is almost frightening. For the end this year to be so sad, is remarkable. Usually there is parties, with champagne, to celebrate the passing of vacation to school. The kids are out of my hair, life is good.

This year as I step from the swimming pool and jump back into the car pool, I am sad. Could it be that my baby is starting preschool and well, is no longer a baby? I put that transition off for as long as I could, I even moved to a different state so she could stay home for a year longer.

Could it be that we actually had a fantabulous summer? California was awesome, such a good time. Connecticut was the bomb freakin' diggidy. I was so nice to see cousins, friends and family. The pool was super great. The kids, for the most part, were really good, and we all had so much fun just hanging out. No schedules, no need to be a this place by this time. If you don't want to get dressed don't.

Could it be that if summer is over, time has passed and my husband is still unemployed? I do not look forward to a winter with him unemployed. Last winter was not so good. It makes me nervous to over-winter with him unemployed.

Could it be that if summer is over, the winter is coming?

Perhaps as in all good multipule choice tests, it is all of the above. We have had a wonderful summer, and I am sorry to see it end. But with every ending there is a new beginning, we will have new teachers, which we know nothing about. There will be new kids in the classes, does this mean new friends? There is a lot of possibility. With possibility comes uncertainty, and that uncertainty makes me nervous.

For today, we will party like it is the last day of summer. We will save you a shady seat deck side.

The Pool

We have spent a fair number of days at the pool this summer. It has been a good time, almost every time.

It is heartwarming to watch my kids delight in playing together. There are 3 of them, who needs friends, seems to be the attitude. Mac loves to give Sam and Hannah rides on his back. They love to get them. Mac has been helping Sam learn how to swim, and catching Hannah when she jumps off the edge.

They play the radio at the pool, sort of loudly. Some days it is almost deafening. They play mostly oldies, so, sadly, songs from when I was a teen. The kids have heard many of these songs and love to sing along. We have taken to singing along very loudly. This of course has caused us to discover that more people than you might have guessed, from our neighborhood, frequent the pool. I am already there in my bathing suit, which isn't a real pretty picture to begin with, so at this point, what is a little more humiliation?

The above is more for painting the scene, we are loud, obnoxious and impervious to embarrassment. We arrived on the scene yesterday, in a swimming pool mood. Jukebox Hero was playing on the radio. The kids are all excited, they like this song, they "know" the words. Mac grabs his towel, which is rolled up, and pretending to make it into a microphone and as loud as he can belts out "He is a juice-box hero, he has stars in his eyes..." It was a glorious moment.

Yup, that is right, after all these years of teasing him about it, he still really believes that there is such a thing as a juice-box hero. All is not lost. Of course jukeboxes these days are not so common and they don't play records, and he did have to make sure he knew what one was when I told him it was NOT juice-box, but rather jukebox.

Good Bye Hair

This just in, Hannah has cut her hair. Her beautiful long curly locks have been shorn. She took the kitchen shears and cut her pig-tail off. I learned, that her cousin already cut her hair once. Apparently her cousin did a good job, because I didn't really notice. But, in the spirit of channeling Leah, Hannah cut 5" off. I should have taken a picture of her prior to my cleaning it up, but I was too horrified.

Hannah had long hair down to the middle of her back, and now, it just barely grazes her shoulders. The picture does not show it after a good wash, when the curls are back. Sure she looks cute, with her bob of curly hair. I will miss the pigtails on my baby, she looks like a big girl now.


I will leave you with a picture of the new hair, short. I am sad. I liked the long hair. It will grow. She just came in and asked if she could have another haircut. I guess, it begins.

Water Slides

Mac's entire purpose in life is to get me to go down the water slide with him. Finally, on Tuesday I relented. It was horrible. You slide down this dark enclosed slide, where periodically you get shot with water in the face. It seemed when ever I opened my eyes to see what was going on I got a face full of water. It was awful. I vowed to never do it again.

We went to the pool yesterday with a friend of mine, who my kids adore. When she showed up at the door, they were thrilled that Miss T. was coming with us. There were squeals of joy. Anyway, Mac resumed his purposeful demands that Miss T. go down the slide. My friend is a fairly fearless person, but she didn't want to do it. I am sure my description of the enclosed slide made her even less willing. BUT in order to keep the peace, I relented to go again. This of course peer pressured my friend into going. We opted for the open slide. Lo and behold, this was actually FUN. I went again. I wished I had done that first.

I suppose, just like life, I prefer to be in the light rather than the dark. I prefer to have some idea of what is coming up next rather than be surprised.

Thanks world

In the past month I have received emails, phone calls, yarn, massages, candy, and numerous other gifts of support, both material and non-material. It has been so amazing to me the sheer volume of people that have reached out to us and given us tokens of support. May those tokens be gifts to cheer us up or actual job leads and networking contacts. People have volunteered to watch the kids so I could work and Bob could job hunt. Friends have dropped by meals, just cuz. We have had unemployment suppers with our other unemployed friends, and because of that, are starting to make new friends.

There are so many people praying for us, both friends and folks we have never met, it is amazing. The power of G-Ds will is mind boggling. Like tulips pushing through the hard ground in spring, I feel the power of things that are good, pushing through the bad. Eventually, those tulips have to blossom, and we have to end the uncertainty.

Our kids have embraced our new financial situation with great creativity. It is amazing the things these kids have figured out how to do for free. They are worried and scared, but for the most part, everyone is pitching in.

So, I know I am greedy, but please keep the support coming, and PLEASE, send us a job. We try and pay it back in ways we can right now, and totally admit we haven't been so good at paying it forward. We will get better. But, for now, thank you world for the help! Thank you for slowing the kicking down so that we can catch our breath!

We waited....

I learned a lesson while waiting. That bad things happen so you can appreciate the good and joyful things in your life.

The first 2 weeks were a bit like vacation. We hung out, went to the pool and various museums. We checked stuff out. It was ok, kinda lonely, but ok.

Then school started, and it got crazy. Driving the kids to school basically blows. It is super tiring, and by the end of the week, I am pooped. But, we go through Mac's first day, without any problems. Then it was Sam's turn. We drove to the house, parked and started walking, and low and behold a bus drove by and asked us if we would like a ride. Wonders never cease, since we hadn't talked about it Sam wasn't into it. The next day he rode the bus. He liked it. He liked it so much he decided that he should ride it home to, when his teacher told him no, he freaked. When he saw me he threw the mother of all temper tantrums. Of course this was in front of the entire school, where all the parents are in line to pick up their kids, all the teachers and the principal are out there. I ended up having to carry him, while he was screaming, "you are hurting me," to the car. It was lovely. He screamed until 4:30, so for an hour.

The next day, the nurse pulled the kids from gym because our forms said CT on them and not IL. Mac went into a tail spin about this. He cried and hit me because I didn't turn the forms in. He told me all the kids were going to hate him and think he was stupid.... it was lovely, and against the law.

The next day was Friday... got the forms in, got the kids situated... all seemed well again. WRONG. Tuesday morning some kids tried to hit my kids with rocks...then Sam go hit by a bike. I was not impressed.

By the end of the week we saw the movers move the people out of our new house, and we think we see the light at the end of the tunnel. (it might be a train!)

But as we went through all of this stress, Hannah and I sang songs and jumped over cracks while the boys were in school. Spending time with her and her mostly unflappably happy attitude certainly helped make things seem like they might actually be better. I truly enjoyed her. Without the bad, I might have missed these moments with her.

Here we are... now what

We watched all our worldly belongings drive down the street headed towards Rhode Island. We met the people who bought our house, perhaps they aren't so bad. We loaded everyone, 3 kids and a dog, into 2 cars. We drove for 3 days and here we are. We live in 1200 square feet.

It is all a little surreal. It seems like we are on vacation. In spite of the fact that we left the house with nothing in it, it still felt like we were just leaving for a trip and that we would come back soon. It didn't seem like good bye forever. But it was.

Our apartment, while wholly adequate, is well an apartment. Not really appropriate for a family of 5 and a dog. The kids are at loose ends. They don't have any friends to play with. They don't have an activities to attend. It is all a bit odd. It seems like a vacation. I like to pretend that we are in a vacation condo on Maui.

We have seen the house, registered the kids for school. Now we wait. We wait. The kids are acting out, I am sad and lonely. We wait for our lives to start. This is all like a huge pause in our lives. We wait for the next chapter to begin.

Hi, are you Susanne?

Ok, so here's the scene. It is 8:45ish and the Paul Arpin truck pulls up in front of the house. (Paul Arpin ROCKS btw) It is only a box truck, not the big semi, which I was informed by the 5 year old was not what I promised. He was pretty let down, but I digress.

So, the guys from Paul Arpin are here, give them the nickel tour of the house and they are getting boxes from the box truck. (Get it? Ok, well, I thought is was funny. Yeah, no one else does either.) They are bringing in the load and there is this young guy at my door. I say hi. He says, "Are you Susanne?" I say, "yeah." Now, I know my name is Susanna, but in the history of the world, no contractor has ever called me that. He says to me, I am here to look at the chimney. I say ok. He tells me that someone called him and said the chimney was falling apart. I said "WTF? I don't think so." I told him that the crown had cracked and that we had it fixed. He could inspect the crown. He said ok. I also told him that if he wanted to go on the roof I needed to see his insurance. He said he didn't need to go on the roof. He told me everything look solid to him, and he left. I thought GREAT!!! The AH's didn't come! Maybe they aren't so bad after all.

So I am in the house making food for the kids and I get this feeling that the swine were out there. Sure as poop, they were. We let them cool their heels in the street for a half an hour. After I was pretty certain that they had called the chimney contractor and talked to him, I grabbed the 2yr old and went outside and had a chat with them.

I tried to schedule the walk through, but they would have nothing of that. I also gave the realtor a piece of my mind about her calling my chimney contractor. She had the audacity to accuse me of not sending the information. Now, everyone that knows me knows that I am pretty buttoned up, so this is a ludicrous accusation. She was extremely combative, and I finally told her that we are trying to do the right thing. I was pretty upset that they keep kicking us. Have I mentioned that I HATE her? Hate is actually too mild a word. Unbelievable!

Anyway, the good thing was that she assured me that they planned on closing. I hope that happens. I really do, because if it doesn't I plan to sue them for liquidated damages.

Only 3 more days, only 3 more days.

Are they for real?

So, we told our realtor that the buyers couldn't come and see our house on Monday, the chimney guy could come, but they couldn't. Our movers are coming between 8 and 10 on Monday, and having them arrive at the same time too is a bit overwhelming.

When we told them that only the chimney guy could come, they got mad and didn't understand why we wouldn't let them in the house. Tomorrow should be interesting. I am on the brink of a nervous break down!

The kids are excited to get going and see the truck. I think everything will be much better once we are in our temporary apartment and our current home is sold. Seeing the money in the bank will make me very very very happy.

I ask everyone to pray for me to make it through this and to have our house actually be sold. I never thought that selling our house could be so amazingly difficult!

My last girls night

It is very sad, we had our last girls night. I am going to miss my friends so much. I have had so many negative experiences in my life that it is hard for be to believe that I have some many great friends.

I wasn't very popular in High School and even after college, people were pretty mean to me. So I was very nervous about staying home and trying to make mommy friends. I have gotten to the point where I have some wonderful relationships, and now I have to leave them. :(

I am very nervous about meeting new people in the new place. Will they be nice? Will I like them? Will they be muffys? Will they be regular people who like to coupon? Will I find a job?

So much unknown. It is scary and I feel like I want to cry every time I think about the move.

The whole thing has been really stressful . It seems that everything thing that could go wrong has gone wrong. My husband won't let me go into detail yet, but once it is over, I have some stories for you! Needless to say, I go to bed crying most nights because of the sadness of it, but also because of the overwhelming stress.

Is the siding coming?

The truck is scheduled to arrive in 10 days. The count down is on. My 7 year old is concerned about leaving his friends and all the change that is coming down the pike. My 2 year old is clueless. She just dances around and plays with her toys. Her pack? I don't think so!

But, my 5 year old, he is very concerned about what is coming with us. We look at the virtual tour of the house almost daily so he can see his room and the playroom where his toys will be.

"Mom, why do Mac-y and Hannah have beds in their rooms? My room is just empty?" Says Sam.

"All the furniture in the new house will be gone when we get there sweetie."

"But Mom, where is our furniture going?"

"It is going into storage for a month and then the truck will bring it to our new house."

"Are the men taking our beds?"

"Yes," I say getting exasperated with the daily questions about what is coming and what is staying.

"Are they taking the stuff on the side of the house?"

"Yes, sweetie, they are taking your toys from the side of the house," I say, as I start to walk out of the room.

"No Mommy, the plastic stuff on the outside of the house."

"You mean the siding? No, that stays, our new house will have siding."

"But Mommy our new house has bricks."

Leave it to a 5 year old to state the obvious.