Wow. Did that just happen? In the past week since we've moved (if you want to be technical about it, actually it's 9 days) we've loaded and unloaded a Uhaul (well, Tristan pretty much did it, with a bit of help from me and a few friends along the way); learned the value of air conditioning; spent way too much time in a moving vehicle; realized that Good will and Craigslist are not quite up to par for a city girl from Portland; fought to put together an IKEA desk; lazed around on our beautiful donated from family couch; realized that that having one computer chair in the house is not a good thing; fought once and had one horrible, no good, just bad day; taken Kaeden and watched him play in the Rogue River on a 100 degree day; and wandered around our place, going "This is ours, right? Right?"
A week later, there is still some work to do, mainly to our room. Kaeden's room is just about perfect (or will be when I remember to buy a curtain rod so we can actually hang curtains instead of a blanket across his window) and I love the fact that we have a crib now, instead of the co-sleeper. To me, the crib is such a large, solid thing, something that says "We are here to stay awhile". The co-sleeper was more along the lines of "We're going to move any minute now", which was kind of the theme for our past year. I need to find a few cute things to put on his wall, but that will come with time.
Our dining room table looks sadly bare without any chairs next to it, so for now we're eating on the couch and the coffee table. This has actually set up an interesting routine. We drag Kaeden's learning tower into the kitchen (right now that is the greatest thing ever) and he sleepily drinks some milk or juice, licks a spoon of peanut butter or nibbles on an animal cracker, and watches one of us make breakfast. Then we move the show to the living room, setting Kade up in his little "tot spot" camp chair and he'll eat until he's bored, at which time he'll wander around and play for a few minutes, coming back to sit in his spot and grab a few bites when we feels like it. In this way, and by celebrating every bite he eats, we actually get him to eat more than when we just stuck him in his high chair and stared at him.
Kade really wants to do whatever-and exactly-what we are doing. When I'm sitting on the couch eating next to him, he'll wedge himself between my knees, and proceed to eat off of my plate and drink from my cup, handing me food he's discovered he doesn't like or has had his full of. This works fine for me, since I'm so slow at eating anyway.
Now that we are in our own place (This is all ours? Right?) I've finally been able to do what I planned, and it's working...pretty well. I've taken two layers of the foam mat things and layered them, so this area has become Kade's dance floor. Oh yes, you should see this kid boogy! Mostly he waves his arm or turns in circles really fast; he's still working on coordinating everything together. One corner of the living room is devoted to his toys and the bottom drawer of our (freaking heavy, took four people to get it into the Uhaul (thanks Michael and Sasha, you rock!) entertainment center is for more of Kade's toys. This kid does not need any more toys. He has a box, bin, or area for his toys in every room in the house, sans the kitchen. The only thing I'm still seeking for him is a play kitchen, because I know he'd have fun with it, and I've have fun playing with him because I had a play kitchen once and I loved it.
The only drawbacks to my "Kade's corner" plan is that: I need more foam mats; and Kade sprawls, spews, and dribbles his toys everywhere. Actually this isn't a bad thing; I just take a walk through the house at the end of the day, tossing random bits and bobs of toys into the nearest bin/drawer/Kade area and "cleanup" is done in less than three minutes. Although, with that learning tower thing, doing dishes takes a bit longer, since Kade insists on rinsing the dishes and placing them in the drying rack...except, at 17 months old, he's not the most coordinated person on the planet, so ample help is needed to make sure he doesn't break our (very few) nice plates or my beloved Pyrex bowls.
But the main point here is that, every day, we are able to get up, roll out of bed, and grab Kade and go about our day....without interfering with anyone else's day, or feeling trapped or cramped, or feeling bad because I went to bed with laundry still in the dryer or the dishes in the sink, rinsed but unwashed (this has happened once). I have my kitchen set up mostly the way I think it should be (I'm still fighting to find a good organization for the Tupperware...probably the most boring thing ever to mention in a post).
Now that I have figured out how to hook up our small flat screen TV in our bedroom to Tristan's laptop folding laundry is not a huge deal, because I have to walk all of 20 feet from the dryer to dump the laundry on the bed. Kade plays with his toys in the ample room at the foot of our bed while I hunt up something on Netflix (we are still in the one month free trial period) and did you know Netflix has like, every Matt Smith Dr. Who episode? It doesn't matter that 99% of the time, I have only 1% understanding of what is going on in that show....Matt Smith is a cutie (Tristan puts up with this because it is one of the few shows, like NCIS, that we can watch together). I think I'm sold on this thing, mostly because right now we don't have cable. Once my work doesn't require me to have a home phone (training in the new system next week, woot!) that may change.
I'm also realizing that with my new diggs comes a new found appreciation for certain things, like curtains and picture frames, that I did not previously understand. As a college student, here is a picture of what my walls were decorated with:
No frames. Lots of horses. Helmet hanging on wall. Unframed Arizona state flag. Pins and printed out pictures and pages from magazines (mostly Horse Illustrated, Rural Heritage and National Geographic). I still have those Firefly posters, now covering up some of the whiteness of our walls, although sans frames (at least they are put up with that putty stuff that won't ruin walls instead of pins, though!) I did find a few frames for some of my nicer paintings, though only about a quarter of the things on my walls right now are framed. You can see the effect of long travels and captivity in our posters. Tristan has this one poster he's had forever that is still beautiful, but badly ripped and folded and sad looking. But I can't stand the white walls, so it hangs until a future trip to Goodwill or a garage sale find takes pride of place.
There are a few other things that will make this place more ours, and more comfortable to live in, but those will come with time and rediscovering what we both like in terms of decoration and organization. Getting curtains hung in the bedrooms is my project this week, as well as finding a second dresser, hunting up dining room and/or patio chairs (we have both a dining table and a patio table without chairs, aren't we just awesome, awesomely poor!), finding more frames, and finally getting the office actually organized to a higher level, instead of to the "I can get my job done and not much else" level. This has to happen in between my 40 hour, still mostly graveyard work week, cooking all the food, packing Tristan off to school for summer term, and seeking riding or dog related volunteer opportunities and trustworthy babysitters and day care centers.
You know, glorious, beautiful, lovely life. But it's all worth it, and lovely, because this our life, and Kade and Tristan, my two grumpy morning boys, are worth it.
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