Birthdays

August has always been an important month for me, since it's my birthday month. Fourteen years ago, it became my wedding aniversary month. Now it is also Meredith's birthday too. We decided to have a big birthday/housewarming party, and we had a great time. It takes some time to figure out how to entertain in a new home, and we're still working it out. The cover to the hot tub made a great buffet out on the deck, but we definitely need more tables & chairs. The best part of the evening was the inaugural campfire in the back yard. A friend brought his guitar & the kids had fun singing & running around. We were so delighted so many of our friends came, and we hope everyone will be back soon.

Happy First Birthday Miss Meredith. I love you so much.

Blackberries

The move is done. Yeech. I estimate I have moved eleven times in the past 17 years, not including in & out of college dorms, so I should be an expert at this. This, however, was the first time I've moved with kids, which complicates things by an order of magnitude. The closing for both the sale of our old house & the purchase of our new house happened as scheduled, miraculous considering our buyer was $50k short on closing day. Moving day dragged on forever, but it finally ended with all the stuff in our new house. Most of the boxes have been unpacked, and the rest can wait until I'm ready.

We're having fun discovering the house and the property. We live in a VERY old neighborhood--our street was built in 1683, and our house was built in 1820. I can hardly believe I ended up in an historic home, but it is in great shape with excellent additions & renovations. So many historic homes are peculiar tumbles of rooms with extremely low ceilings, but this one is exceptional. It has 3 chimneys, 2 are original & 1 in the most recent addition. It has a wonderful kitchen, & the new master bath is straight out of an interior design magazine.

The most fun, though, is discovering the yard. We have 1.25 acres, which is a LOT in this area. The rabbits visit during the day, & the bats visit at night. I go for nightly walks with Meredith around the yard. She gets to this time of day where she wants to be held, but just being held is too boring & she fusses. The best solution I have found is our regular evening constitutionals. She & I discovered a wild blackberry patch on the hill. After dinner she & I scramble through the vines & weeds to the blackberries, and we eat them right there. She LOVES them & so do I, so flavorful & sweet. We had no idea there was a berry patch until we moved in & started living here. Who knows what else is here? We have a lifetime to find out. We're home for good.

Cardboard Boxes

Memorial Day is traditionally our summer kickoff, and we usually take a long weekend somewhere. This year we had 2 kids & too much to do, so we stayed home, but that meant it was the first year we were around for the town Memorial Day Parade. The kids had a lot of fun waving the little flags, and I always enjoy local color. It was Meredith's first parade, and it suited her party girl nature to have so much excitement around her. Sylvia loved the firefighters & police officers, and she loves anything that has to do with the "Grand Old Flag."

The bad news is that I have declared June a month of NO FUN. The good news is that June is no fun because we have to pack to move to our new home on July 1st! We found the perfect place just 2 miles up the the same road we live on now, our too-small home is sold & everything is proceeding as planned. Now we just have to put everything we own in boxes.

T. keeps saying it won't take long, we're almost done, this will be easy, we're in good shape . . . I did the bulk of the packing for our last 3 moves, and I don't think we've even made a dent yet. This is the first move in a long time that I haven't worked in a hospital, so I don't have an easy supply of boxes. Hospitals are the best places to get boxes--there is an endless quantity of every size and shape, and medical supplies come packed in really nice, sturdy boxes. There is always some place by the elevators or by the loading dock where the housekeeping staff piles up the boxes, so at the end of the day I would just swoop by, grab as many as I could carry, and come back for more the next day. This move, we'll have to buy boxes or rent plastic crates. I packed up some china yesterday (I'm not likely to need the gravy boat in the next 3 weeks) into a very nice dish box that must have been given to us by our next door neighbors in St. Louis 6 years ago. Haven't thought about them in a long time, & I wonder how they are doing. This is why we're buying our long awaited big house & settling down where we are--we've had enough of boxes and goodbyes.

Snacktime

I was carrying the baby through the living room when I stepped on something that I had never stepped on before--smooth with ridges, crunchy. I looked down & there on the floor was an entire box of dried spaghetti. Turns out the horses needed some hay.

Our dance parties now include Snacktime by the Barenaked Ladies--fun album. I love having dance parties with the girls as much as they love it. Mostly I do my "stretch dance" for my tense neck & shoulder. Then Sylvia & I do our dance move where I toss her onto the couch (why should daddies have all the fun?). Meredith tries to get in the thick of it, and she pounces on my head when I lay down to stretch my back. The dishes are piling up & the laundry isn't folded, but I figured out that I can either have a clean house or I can enjoy my kids while they're little. Some day I'll miss the Cheerios on the floor.

Back from Beyond

Yikes! It has been too long, my friends. I am too discombobulated at this moment to write something funny & insightful (just got off the phone with a hysterical patient, sigh), so I'll just post some pictures of my kids & call it a post.

Here we are on a sleigh ride on our trip last month to Jackson, NH. The girl on the right is the 3yr old daughter of the friends we went with. New Hampshire has had record breaking snow this year--over 10ft when we were there in early March, more since then. I couldn't tell you what the town looked like because it was hidden behind enormous snow banks. Needless to say the skiing was great & we'll get back there as soon as we can.

Shout out to Jocele for her post on the terrors of parenting. Miss you, Dr. Jo.

Forming My Daemon

As I am grappling with a nasty 24h bout of stomach flu, I'm reading The Golden Compass. Click the link to help my daemon settle.

Wintery Mix

Eight inches of snow on Thursday, and now a nor'easter blowing through. We're in the middle of what is euphamistically called "Wintery Mix"--sounds like a pretty candle fragrance, but it's a sloggy combo of snow, sleet, rain & ice. Luckily this one hit on a Sunday with plenty of advance warning so we can tuck in & watch.

In knitting news, I'm stalled about halfway through a clapotis scarf. Does anyone else find themselves halfway through a big project & suddenly thinking "I HATE THIS YARN! WHAT WAS I THINKING?!" Or am I not buying nice enough yarn? I have 4 skeins of a pretty dusky pink cotton classic yarn, so I need to start a baby sweater before the baby gets much bigger & I don't have enough.

Yesterday we visited a friend who has 3 American Shetland ponies, & he took us for a little ride through the snowy woods. Jingling bells & hooves crunching through snow--very buccolic, and only 1/2 mile down the road. I'm so glad to be able to offer my girls some rural experiences.