Prego my Eggo
So here’s some news. Baby numero 4 is his (or her) way to the JaRuud house.
My head has been swimming for a couple weeks now, as has my stomach. We haven’t told anyone but the kids and one friend, and I’m not one for secrets. I feel the need to blab today. Why not tell the whole internet? And the few friends that read this!
This is the longest I’ve gone into a pregnancy (not far really, though- 7 weeks), without telling my family. Why not? Well, I guess I’m feeling a little teenage-unwed-mother. Though I’m not unwed, and clearly I’m not a teenager. Maybe I’m just feeling a little silly. Three-quarters of my children weren’t planned! Can’t you guys control yourselves? I picture my mom saying the same thing as she did when I called her to tell her I was pregnant the first time: “Whoa. *long pause* I better go get your dad.”
Here’s a looking-glass into some of the crazy brain twirling-
*A baby! A sweet little ball whose curled up position shows me exactly the way he curled inside me.
-Oh, we can so not afford a baby right now. Before I had babies, I was disillusioned into thinking children were not expensive. I’d buy used clothes, used toys; our bottom line would barely be impacted. Silly me. Those kids actually eat! They require a bigger car, a bigger house. Clothes and toys are not the half of it. When I was single my default I-don’t-want-to-cook-dinner was a slice of pizza and a beer from the pizza joint across the street for about $8. Now that meal for us is about $40 (minus the beer for the kids), and it’s not across the street in Suburbia. And our annual income is now less than when I was eating the $8 pizza.
*A whole new JaRuud person. Judging by the lovely gene combinations Mark and I made with his siblings, he has a great chance of adding to the world in the wonderful ways of imagination, silliness, creativity, and happiness.
-How am I ever going to handle four such creative, opinionated, messy, LOUD individuals on a daily basis? I’m having trouble with three. Trouble might be the wrong world. I don’t think anyone else would say I’m having trouble. I get compliments on my kids all the time. I do have a hard time feeling I’m doing a good job at this motherhood thing. Adding to the load can’t help.
*Baby smells. Breathe in. Breathe out. Calming baby smells.
-How in the world do those moms of 10 kids manage to be pregnant while raising the other 9 kids? I am having serious trouble coping. I am drained of energy. I’ve agreed to turn on the television many more times than I’d normally. My patience is way under par. Mt. Foldmore is growing and I have zero ambition to tackle it. The nausea has set in, and all I want to eat is bagels and cream cheese. Fruit and veggies have been lacking in my kids’ meals because I don’t feel like eating them. Thankfully Mark has picked up a lot of the slack, but I feel sooo guilty. He didn’t sign up for this. Intentionally. Then again, neither did I. Intentionally. Back in my first pregnancy I kept a detailed journal every day. In my second pregnancy, I intended to do another journal, and wrote a couple days. This time I know I won’t, but it’s nice to refer to the first journal. I wrote back then, “No one tells you beginning pregnancy is so taxing.” At least I know this is normal for me. I also know with that pregnancy nausea got significantly better at 9.5 weeks. Just a couple more weeks then.
-Lurking is the thought: This pregnancy feels a lot like my first one. The one with twin boys. I’m praying the similarity is carrying a male, not carrying TWO.
*Sibling relationships are amazing to witness. Kids in big families bond like none other. Learn to give like none other. Four is such a nice even (and square!) number. It’s been my favorite number, since high school, when I decided it should be the default guess on any math or science test if I didn’t know the answer. I’m pretty sure somewhere waaaay waaay in the depths of my mind I knew this would happen, I knew this is right. Greta won’t be the odd one out anymore. All three are really excited. Auden and Parker have known for a while that you need a part of a man and a part of a woman to make a baby. For around a year that satisfied them, but one day recently Auden asked how those two pieces get together. Boy how they laughed at my answer. I asked them at dinner after I knew I was pregnant, “Do you guys think we should have any more babies?” They got excited even then, “Oh yes. Make one right now.” I said, well that’s something mamas and daddies do in private. “OK, we’ll go upstairs then!” They meant us to make a baby right then, in the dining room. I’m sure that’s where some babies are made, but none of mine! We decided just the next day to tell them, and one said, “You made one ALREADY?!?” Now they think we’re having a baby because they told us to!
*Maybe I will get to have the non-interventive birth I always wanted. (Twins are a crazy birth experience, and Greta was a c-sec.)
-I am so done with baby stuff. Bouncers, bottles, toys, gates. We had a lot less of it than some families, but it’s pervasive. Now it’s going to creep back into my house. I don’t worry too much though. Most anything, if I don’t want to let it in, doesn’t have to come back. Babies need a lot less than they get, in terms of stuff.
*What I’m not worried is the baby itself. We’ve got that part down. Nighttime nursing, diaper changing, those tasks don’t scare me. Wear the baby, sleep with the baby, sing to the baby, occasionally give it a bath, that’s all good. I’m a lot more apprehensive about the year we have 7, 7, 4, and 1 year olds.
We’re adjusting. We’re accepting. Hopefully I won’t regret later announcing this in a less than 100% positive way for the whole world to see. I’m being honest. It’s hard for Heather not to be honest. I think that’s why I haven’t told many yet. I’m working up to an honestly positive spin on this. A new baby. A fourth baby. I think it may be just the blessing, just the balance our family needed. Exciting indeed!
I know you’ve been on the edge of your seats
I was glad I posted that I was going to keep track of my time for a week. Otherwise I might have been tempted to be less than deligent about it. And I think it’s pretty fun data to look at. But I’m a geek. If you don’t like data, just skip this one. Did I tell you I rocked all my lab reports in high school and college?
Take a look. One thing is pretty obvious, and I knew it before I started. If I want to free up more time each day, I need to get off the computer (I say, as I sit here with my laptop).
Here’s the nitty gritty of how I took the data and categorized:
I looked at a semi-normal “work week”, Monday through Friday, 10/26-10/30. Semi-normal because 2/3 of my kids stayed home sick at least one day from school.
A good portion of the time I’m doing twenty bazillion things at once. I counted the activity that was the more “productive”, somewhat arbitrarily. For instance, if I was folding laundry and watching TV, I called it laundry. In the kitchen category, there’s plently of time that was spent putting on somebody’s shoes, mediating a squabble, or answering a phone call. I wasn’t that exact. But if I left the kitchen more than 5 min, I tried to count it.
I didn’t put sleep in the graph to leave room for the other categories, but it averaged 6.5 hours a night.
Here’s what some of the categories mean:
- Kids (3.63 hours)- I was actually surprised at how high this number is. The time I was with the kids, but doing something else, like laundry or the computer, isn’t included. This is straight kid-mama time- talking to them, bathing, crafting, reading, playing LEGOs, puzzling, bedtiming, cuddling, and taking them to swimming lessons (the one regularly scheduled non-school activity every week).
- Computer (2.93 hours)- I wasn’t so surprised at how high this number was. Mainly because every time I’m on the computer, I’m thinking how I’m wasting my time. Because there’s always a million other things. And work on the computer isn’t concrete. How do I manage to spend 3 hours a DAY on it? I’m not really sure, exactly. I read email, send email, look up directions, recipes, read blogs, comment on blogs, put a few minutes into the Facebook timesink, pay bills, track if next month I’ll be able to pay the bills, and figure out why that guy in the movie we’re watching looks familiar.
- Kitchen (2.77 hours)- This includes prepping 3 meals and multiple snacks, serving said meals, and cleaning them up. I separated out actual sitting down to eat. I feel good about this number [Sounds like what they say on The Biggest Loser, right? Hey, it's a show about food.]
- Preschool (1.23 hours)- We belong to a cooperative preschool, so this included time actually with the kids, to-and-from school driving time, a parent meeting, and some fundraising. Most weeks I don’t spend quite this much time, but it does put things in perspective for me.
- Eating (0.76 hours)- Meaning I sit for an average of 15 minutes each meal. Not bad for a mama of 3, really. Some days I loooong for the days when Mark and I lingered at the table, talking.
- Mark (0.52 hours)- As with kidtime, this is straight Mark-only time. ‘Nuff said.
- TV (0.52 hours)- I’m not sure what it says that this is the exact amount of time I spent with Mark, also.
- Friends (0.45 hours)- Face-to-face, not on-line or phone. I’d like to have more adult interaction, laughing, and support, but I recognize it’s hard to do right now. Also, it can be built into preschool, park, kitchen, and eating, if I could just find time to arrange it…
- Bus stop (0.43 hours)- I’m not much of a waiter. Not the food service kind, the can-handle-waiting-on-other-people kind. I keep telling myself it would be one thing if our bus stop was on a quieter street, so I could enjoy nature and my daughter while we wait. Instead, it’s along a 5 lane highway, where I’m always afraid my daughter going to get run over, and where I can’t answer my cell phone because the cars rushing by are so loud. It is a break in the day of housework, though, and a short walk.
- Insomnia (0.40 hours)- Middle of the night, wideawakeness. This was 2 hours all on one night. It makes the next day a bear. Once a week is about the yoush.
- Grooming (0.30 hours)- Mark thought this choice of category name was hilarious. ”Are you a pet?” I just meant, showering, washing my face on the days I didn’t shower, putting on the rare application of mascara, plucking eyebrows. Isn’t that grooming?
- Cleaning (0.24 hours)- See, I told you this is my corner.
- Other (1.55 hours)- Included resting, phone calls, organizing, packing/unpacking for daily outings, pet care, planning our lives out on the calendar, etc.
I plan to post on my plans to modify some of my days based upon what I found. But right now, a 2 year old has woken up and brought me 23 books and counting. I’m not joking. So that will wait. ***By the time I spellchecked, it was 31. I counted. See, all about the data.
Targeting homemade
I’ve been trying not to get all riled up by one of the Northshore School District policies. I’ve already decided that it’s not worth my time to fight the beast about it, but I still lay awake thinking about it one night last week. So my final therapeutic measure is to blog about it.
The district won’t allow any homemade foods to be brought it for sharing. On birthdays and special occasions, we are invited to bring in store-bought items.
On the one hand, this policy is more lenient then some schools with a school-wide nut-free policy. I don’t have to worry about foods I send with my kids on a daily basis. But at least a nut-free policy serves to protect kids from something that can harm, if the school has one of those kids with the misfortune of a life-threatening nut allergy.
A store-bought only policy for “treat days” doesn’t serve to protect anybody. The bad-fat-laden, preservative-filled cupcakes that are the store-bought norm are not safe for plenty of kids with allergies. They won’t get to eat them anyway. Yes, its safety for those kids can be confirmed by a label. I’d argue, though, that those foods are not really “safe” for anybody to eat.
Homemade goods can be labeled also. Yes, you’d have to trust the parents’ ability to label completely, and minimize crossover contamination. If a child is really really allergic to many foods, he could choose (or be instructed) not to eat questionable items, or even all homemade. He probably isn’t getting to eat a lot of the store-bought stuff either and is already used to needing alternate snacks.
I want to be clear- I know having a life-threatening allergy sucks, and I in no way want to make it harder. I’ve happily dealt with bringing daily snacks to other schools that required no nuts, and I’ve made plenty of homemade foods for people who can’t eat nuts, or eggs, or dairy, or even wheat. I just don’t understand why being allergic means you’d go more towards store-bought. In fact, I know if one of my kids was allergy-prone, I’d be baking even more, to enable them to still eat many favorite foods safely.
Making homemade foods (and other non-food items) is truly part of our family’s core values.
Homemade means to us:
- More nutritious- and I don’t just mean our treats lack the “bad stuff”. In a birthday treat, I typically still use at least partially whole grains, and utilize some “add-ins” that add extra nutrition. And I promise, I do it so the kids don’t notice.
- Quality time spent together making food
- That the food maker cares about you
- Cheaper- almost always, and often significantly
- More individualized- last year for their birthday, the boys got a spider and a saber tooth tiger cake. Their favorite animals.
This post might read like it, but I’m really not a Nazi about not eating store-bought treats. Writing this a day post-Halloween, I really have no room to talk about an abstinence-only policy. We eat store-bought junk food plenty. I just think this policy is non-sensical, and teaches kids a sad message. That store-bought is better- a special treat for birthdays, when in reality it’s not even close to better.
So I told my husband I’d send in apples for the boys’ birthday. He looked at me like I’d lost my mind. I won’t, really. I’m not going to ostracize them as the dudes with the crazy mama. I’ll buy something sugary. And I might even eat one. I thought of something funny, though. Technically, if we had the apple orchard I long for, and I dared to buck the sugar-trend and brought in our apples, they’d be homemade. Uh-oh.
Banana bread
Last week I posted about my mishaps getting usable sunflower seeds from the flowers we grew. I ended up with about a cup of extra extra toasted, semi-crushed sunflowers seeds. I considered baking bread, but I had a couple loaves of store-bought, and I wasn’t 100% sure what they would do in a yeast bread. Could I just add them in, or would they replace just a bit of the flour?
Instead, I went with what I know- a quick bread. The choice was also steered by remembering I had some banana puree in the freezer.
It’s hard to go wrong with quick breads and muffins. One can get away with lots of substitutions in a quick bread, so they are perfect recipes to play with. Playing with a quick bread recipe means adding nutrition and using up good food that doesn’t have another obvious purpose. I’ve added in the past: browned apples, leftover thawed blueberries, and the twelve raisins and two almonds sitting in a bowl that were originally served as oatmeal toppings. You can even add leftover oatmeal itself.
In my double batch of banana bread, I added all the toasted sunflower seeds I had, and substituted most of the white flour in the Betty Crocker recipe with wheat flour, gluten, wheat germ, and wheat bran. One of my boys asked, “Are these chocolate chips in here?” That was how toasted the sunflowers were! Brown, but not burnt. Was it a disservice to his nutritional education that I let him believe they were chocolate? Either way, yum.
more about time
Last week I shared what I don’t do with my time.
What’s more important is how I do spend it.
A key to leading a purposeful life is to choose where the time goes, rather than let it slip through your fingers. Easier said than done.
Back in my corporate days, in order to increase efficiency, our director ordered a time audit of the operators on the manufacturing floor. They were observed for a week or so, and every single movement they did was recorded. As you might guess, they found it just a wee bit insulting that management thought a group of strangers could tell them how to do their job faster. I cringe at the thought of any time audit results on my Mama Days. Just how much time did I waste this morning, running back to the house for an extra coat, then my coffee cup, and finally my wedding ring I took off while cutting out biscuits? My aunt thinks pretty much everybody in our family has undiagnosed ADD. Some days I agree, others not. How could I not be frazzled taking care of three kids, two of which are twins that still need constant fighting break-ups, and one of which is two years old and often doesn’t sleep through the night?
But, doesn’t it sound interesting to know?- where does the time go? Many nights I wonder what I did all day.
So, I’m going to find out. In a slightly less detailed scale than the corporate time audit. I’ve been recording every time I switch activities this week. It seems a little obsessive, maybe. I’ll admit a propensity to do more record keeping than most would care to. But I think it’s fun. And all those money management people are always advocating that one starts by figuring out where every dollar goes. This is the same concept, with time. The end goal is to ensure that I’m spending time on the activities that are important to me and my family.
I don’t mean to suggest that every minute of the day needs to be productive. This little activity is meant to make sure I have enough time to relax, to play. Knowing that when I do, it’s right where I’m supposed to be.
I’ll post the results this weekend. I haven’t done any tallying yet, but I can already tell you- I need to do some rearranging. To fit with what actually matters.
Things kids say 1.0
TKS (Things kids say) will be a regular feature on my blog. I won’t be stating this again, but let me just say here at the first installment that I’m well aware my kids aren’t the only ones messing up their words and saying quirky things about dating and God, as evidenced by all the forwards I get.
Setting the scene: Parker and I “reading” an animal board book with Greta. He loves animals, but books with only pictures and no words aren’t what he typically wants read as a 5 year old when baby sister isn’t present. So I’m “spicing it up” by inserting whatever random animal facts I can think of.
Mama: Do you know what a mama sheep is called?
Parker: No.
Mama: Ewe.
Parker (quizzically): Parker? [As in, "Pretty sure that's a weird name for a mama sheep, Mama, but that's what you just said, didn't you?"]
Flowers of the Sun
Please note, this is not in any way a how to manual for anything to do with sunflowers. What transpired here is a bastardization of actually advisable instructions readily available via your favorite search engine.
- Grow sunflowers. (I had nothing to do with this, but the other 80% of our family did. I’m told it’s quite easy.)
- Let them get really tall.
- Send a couple to school for the boys’ teacher. Worry that she won’t like them and that they will be in trouble for bringing them on the bus.
- Chop down the flowers. Let them dry a few days outside.
- Make a total mess of the deck removing all the seeds from the flowers. They are remarkably fleshy.
- Pay boys $1 to clean up the deck.
- Soak half the seeds, still in the hulls, in salt water overnight.
- Roast at 200 degrees F, for about two hours. Store in an airtight container, as they will not be eaten anytime soon.
- Soak the second batch overnight.
- Roast at 350 degrees F for twenty minutes, because two hours was just too long to justify the oven being on merely for sunflower purposes.
- Decide second batch isn’t done; is still damp. Leave on the counter.
- Rotate the two 9×13 pans around the counters wherever space is available for a few days. Maybe a week. Throw randomly in the oven a few times it’s warm. Forget they’re in the oven as it’s preheating to 425 degrees for something else. At least once, maybe twice.
- Decide something must be done. Use them or ditch them.
- Take all the seeds/hulls in batches, place in a Ziploc sandwich baggie, and crush with rolling pin. It would be advisable to use a bigger Ziploc, but I had run out. One child will help, briefly, before deciding “it’s too hard”.
- Put crushedness into a juice pitcher with water, and skim hulls off the top. Into another pitcher.
- Determine pitcher isn’t big enough, and fetch the big mixing bowl from the garage. Continue skimming hulls. Fill both pitchers with hulls.
- Decide rolling pin crushing didn’t get out all the seeds. Get out food processor, and run the hulls through in batches.
- Repeat skimming procedure with the twice-crushed hulls/seeds. In another bowl, so as not to contaminate the only once-crushed hulls/seeds. In case the twice-crushed don’t work. Like any part of this is working.
- Obtain about one cup of crushed sunflower seeds. Stick in the fridge.
- Clean the two pitchers, two mixing bowls, and the food processor. Think about how all the water used in rinsing and skimming, repeat repeat, and then washing kitchen equipment, probably totally negates the benefits of extracting these seeds.
- Clog the disposal with the hulls stuck to everything, even though 90% go into the compost container.
- Unclog the disposal, hoping to complete task before husband comes home. Know he will not be happy I thought I could send even a cup of sunflower seed hulls down it.
- Wonder what I’m going to do with my “bounty”. Bread, muffins? I’ll let you know.
A boy’s bunk = diary of a five old (if it was written by his mama, that is)
On Sunday I was invited to take a tour. The proprietor offered me a free ticket, and said he’d put my name on “the list” for a private viewing, so I went. On up to Auden’s bunk.
Here is my tour guide.
Like any good tourist, I brought my camera. Like any friend of a tourist, you may not find the recitation of the trip as exciting as I did. But something about Auden’s bunk is so HIM; I just have to document it.
Do you remember back when you weren’t big enough to fill a whole twin bed? And the rest of the space could be used as storage? I have vague recollections I kept precious treasures in my bed, but not to this extent. Until I took this tour, I knew he had a lot of stuff of up there, but I hadn’t appreciated its organization or just how much there was.
Auden shares a room with his twin. His bunk is the only space that is his, and his alone. When we got them bunk beds a few years ago, I decided not to allow for any top bunk/bottom bunk squabbling. I assigned Auden to the top bunk, Parker to the lower, and set up the bed with their pillows and blankets while they were out. [btw, highly recommend on the bunk beds spacewise and fortwise]
I knew Auden would have a greater need for his own space. With Parker, wherever he is, that’s his space. To Parker at least. Simple. A squirmy, cuddling extrovert, he makes friends at every park, and thinks the whole world is his oyster. When you’re an introvert with a twin like this, you need the top bunk.
The first thing you will notice is Auden loves spiders,
and Star Wars.
Auden began by highlighting his “collection”. While it appears to me everything in the bunk is a collection, the collection known simply as “my collection” is the shells.
You might be wondering about the motor oil box.
I’d been thinking about adding some type of shelf or cupboard. After seeing the bed storage, you’ll see why. One day a certain two year old sister had practiced her ladder skills one too many times for Auden’s taste, and this quickie box idea was born. It utilized green knobs I replaced on a hand-me-down dresser. They were a bit ugly on the dresser, but I think any knob works on a cardboard box, don’t you? They’re attached with some scrounged washers and handmade cardboard spacers. Try creating your own cardboard furniture sometime. It’s really kind of fun. Someday I may devise an actual shelf made of wood.
After shells, Auden steered my attention to a small shelf that came with the bed. A short history of the bunk bed- My dad made the bed for my two younger sisters. After traveling with the youngest to college, it made its way to our house for two brothers. I think the shelf was an add-on request for nighttime reading.
Auden uses it for that, and more. The left side contains “maps”, which is what Auden and Parker call any instruction book or brochure. They’ve referred to their LEGO maps for years, and I haven’t had the heart to correct it. It’s accurate in a way, isn’t it? On the right, a collection of Spiderman tales.
Then with a Bionicle box neatly separating, we have a few matchbox cars and marbles,
and some shiny rocks.
Notice under the rocks, yet more storage. He demonstrated a procedure to place his beloved Star Wars LEGO book under his shelf and pillow. It involved his “computer”, and pressing the computer’s “button”, which is also visible in the rock picture- the bolt in the corner.
Finally, no child’s bed should be without stuffies.
For their first few years, the boys had no interest at all in stuffed animals. I chalked it up to a boy thing, and continued to long for a girl. Lo and behold, around 3 1/2 years, they both attached to bunnies we’d had in the house since they were infants. Since then, Parker’s dropped the bunny, which is nice, because Auden has two. A side benefit of twinship is that when you’re given two things, and only one twin likes them, he has a replacement for when his own breaks or gets lost. Wood the cat and the Husky dog (Go Huskies!) occupy the top affection spot now.
And there you have it. Being the mama of this five year old is a great place to be.
24 Hours- I’m OK and you’re OK
I will admit it. When I left work to stay home with the kids, I thought I could do it better. Better than my husband did, better than my mother, better than quite a few mamas I know (although I know a lot of great mamas- at least as good as them). I had high aspirations. My kids would be happier, because I’d consistently help them work through their difficulties, and they would in turn be so emotionally fulfilled by this guidance and my attention that all fighting would cease. Our bottom line would improve, even though I wasn’t working, because I’d frugally shop for healthy foods and make meals from scratch. And save even more by making other items to our exact style and size specifications- clothing, curtains, laundry soap. Our home would be clean, organized, and inviting. Hahahaha.
Here’s what I’ve realized. And it’s not earth-shattering. Everybody has the same amount of time each day. Nobody has enough. And no one can do it all. Not that lady with the perfect smart well-adjusted kids and perfect style that suits just them. Not the woman that is well-spoken and up on current events, so much so I don’t dare try to talk to her, as my world has recently gotten smaller, not bigger.
But everybody’s cutting corners somewhere.
Some people are better at hiding where than others.
I know a woman who cuts a giant corner off their own sleep. Women who all but cut out cooking. Others cut a social life, spending time with their kids, or having any kids at all. *Some people don’t spend any time on the internet.* Shock.
I’ve been taking joy in finding people’s corners. I know, I know, it’s not healthy. But some people just seem so perfect. It’s those people I quietly jealousize, and then they say, “I haven’t taken any pictures of Susan since last Christmas.” Or, “We never really go to the park.” And I think, “Oh, she isn’t perfect.” EVERYBODY has a corner. They have to.
What any person spends their time on demonstrates their value system. Whether they are intentional about it or not. It’s easy to let time go to waste, watching tv. Or my time waster- googling random inconsequential things.
I, it’s become obvious, take corners with the care of my house. I really do want a house where a friend can stop by, and not have to trip over toys to come into the kitchen for a cup of coffee. And I wouldn’t have to cringe if the friend heads to the bathroom, because she may step on cat litter and find mildew in the bowl. But this house I do not have.
Right now it’s the corner I’m taking. A giant big dirty disgusting corner. That and plently other little ones. It’s less important to me than my kids, or my sleep, or my food. To me. And that’s ok. Your own corner, whatever it is, is ok too.
Starting with 536 E 7th St
Inspired by Alexa at Flotsam, here’s my home history.
When Company Y took over Company X some years back, I had to provide in my last ten years of addresses, and they didn’t provide near enough lines. I remember being extremely annoyed at the personal invasion of their request, while enjoying the actual compilation. This list was even more enjoyable to write, as accuracy doesn’t count, and I don’t have to track down any old phone bills for the exact street. [Sidenote: I later stumbled across my entire address history guess where: Amazon. Apparently I've had books delivered to every address I've had for a decade, and they kindly still provide you a button to let you choose to ship your order back to that post-college apartment. And I know, I know, I should frequent my local bookstore more often...]
Home uno: A 40 year old-ish house in the middle of a fairly small Northwest town. Lots of character. It had an “attic” in the gable off a closet in my bedroom, accessible by parting the two hanging sleeping bags my parents had for backpacking but never used. I fantasized (and I believe, told some kids at school) that from the attic there was a secret passage to the garage. Remember the show Webster? We lived on a corner, but across the street there was a Dead End (these days known as a cul-de-sac), and past the last house there was The Gulley, which some kids were allowed to play “down in”, and others not. Lots of kids, lots of Cops and Robbers in the Dead End. And at least one baton twirling show in bathing suits for the neighbors. Africa by Toto accompanied.
Home Dos: A characterless split level just inside the same small town city limits. My parents are asleep there now. We moved at the end of my fourth grade year, to accomodate my father’s mother, sweet kind hard-working brownie-baking Grandma Betty. Alas I was hitting my hormonal middle-school years, and one of my saddest regrets in life is that I treated her like crap. I just could not believe her audacity in picking up the dirty clothes from my bedroom floor EVERY DAY and WASHING them. Or dusting my precious nail polish collection. Timing is everything; for that service now, what would I pay? And I would dearly love to hear have her advice about parenting twin boys. Aside from the Grandma drama, the bigger yard was nice, the one goody-goody kid nearby was not destined to be my friend.
Home Tres: Harstad Hall. Lovely old brick building. Lovely group of girls. By which I mean, funny and intelligent and loud and questionable and me-getting. Late nights, bonding, marginal papers, Denny’s runs.
Home cuatro: Evergreen Hall. Industrial type building. I think we studied too much. Not as many memories. I do remember a smell. I think it was rotting pumpkin that no one cleaned up until January.
Home cinco, siete, and diez: The non-sanctioned crew house off campus. I drifted in and out for years, as did others. Owned by the local “slumlord” (but not really, we just thought so) Pinkney, who owned a dozen other run-down college rentals. I went to college in a bad area, even just 6 blocks off campus. I remember looking over my shoulder a lot walking late at night to or from my boyfriend’s house. Owned by the same landlord. What I miss about that house is that people were always just stopping by. Anybody in our group of crew-associated friends knew they were welcome. No one does that anymore. One single coffee date with a friend takes a few emails and then calls and then maybe a text just before. Drives me INSANE.
Home seis: Dorm in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, E. Africa. The one and only home I was mugged near. Someday I might write more…
Home ocho: A room in my future-in-laws house in a nice suburb of an industrial city. My future husband, though, was off at an internship out-of-state while I job hunted. So not as great a gig as it might seem. I did love my FFIL though. I still wonder how he’s doing, as then he was my FFIL but now he’s my XFIL. I randomly got a pee request from PJ while nearing that exit this summer and drove by. Appears he still lives there. Unless he sold the truck to the new owners too. And now you know, I’m a one-time stalker.
Home nueve: Low income apartment housing in the retail area where I had a job for six months before they laid everyone off. The joke about that city is STILL that they all have big hair. Clean but bare bones apartment, smelled constantly of the neighbors’ smoke. Lonely. There’s nothing like the neighbors partying next door to make you feel lonely at night. And driving by countless fast food chains on the way to work the next morning.
Home once: A 4plex near downtown Seattle. Ahhh, busing to work, never having to drive, and 2 bedrooms is a lot of room with no kids. A cab home from downtown after bar close was less than $5. I wasn’t at my happiest, as I was trying to live the wrong life- wrong husband, wrong job, wrong church. But it wasn’t the apartment’s fault.
Home doce: We’d tried urban married life, so now we tried rural married life. It coincided with a job change for me. We moved 50 miles outside Seattle, just outside a rural town that’s becoming more suburban by the minute as the sprawl encroaches. It was too far. Too far from my friends and sister in Seattle, or any good shopping or culture. And really, I didn’t enjoy the guy I was there living isolated with, whether or not we had room for a worm bin. So….
Home trece: back to the city. The cutest TEENY apartment in Fremont, in Seattle. I named my son Fremont. Ok, his middle name. Loved my building, built in 1906, same year my above-mentioned Grandma Betty was made. The eclectic, walk to restaurants, bars, and everywhere but work, urban life. That apartment was my refuge, with its tall breezy windows and bedroom that fit, literally, only a bed. It lasted the end of my marriage, some single craziness, and meeting my 2nd and current husband, MJ. But alas, raising twins was not going to happen in 550 sq ft.
Home catorce: An old rental house in Greenlake, Seattle. It didn’t last long. The summer the boys were born my sister and I walked everywhere. I have lots of fond memories, as I’d guess most people do of the home they first brought a child into. I kinda wish we never left. But we wanted to buy, and MJ was tired of parking on the narrow street. In retrospect it seems like that last one is a silly reason. I guess I was feeling societal pressure to own a home, now that I had kids. And that meant moving away from the city, again. You might think I’d have learned.
Home quince: A disgusting, moldy apartment that would go month-to-month while we house-hunted. Same city as Home nueve.
Home diecisies (finally): Our home here in Surburbia. There’s nothing wrong with the house, persay. Except that the carpeting was old when we moved in and after 5 years of 2 then 3 kids its nothing short of I’m-not-sure-I-should-invite-people-over-anymore-disgusting. It’s the location. Not only do I hate strip malls and yet have chosen to live among them, we did not realize when we bought that the two lane road at the back of the yard was soon to be widened to five lanes and a 14 foot cement wall was erected at the fence. So very pretty. If I walk to the grocery store, I have the constant feeling that all the people driving by at 45 mph are feeling sorry for me because they assume I don’t have a car. I dearly hope a move is in our future. But probably not soon, with the whole housing bubble unemployed bit.
