my least favorite part of the day

finding myself sick. again.

my favorite time of day

There are moments I experience as a mother that are beautiful beyond measure.

Every morning when I get my little guy out of his crib we come downstairs, wrap ourselves up in a blanket and lay on the couch. Even though he usually has been awake and playing for a while already, he still lays down and cuddles with me. Sometimes he goes back to sleep, and so do I. More often he just lays hugging me, plays with my hair and smiles sweetly up at me in loving adoration. After a while the call of the toys gets strong and he'll climb down to play.

What a wonderful way to start the day.

pacing and other activities

I'm incapable of sitting still for phone conversations. My old boss just called me to catch up and after 75 min of bs'ing I hung up the phone to find the clean dishes put away, the dirty dishes done, my entire kitchen in a state of scrubbed down cleanliness, dinner started and myself kind of out of breath and with only the vaguest memories of doing most of those things. I don't know what to call it...split attention amnesia?

my little brother, aka all-star MVP

My little brothers are ridiculously talented jocks. It's no big surprise -- their parents are very into sports. Not just watching but playing, too. All of my half siblings have grown up (or are still growing up) in Sports Land. TV watching is frowned on. Getting outside and playing is encouraged. Pretty much every day of the year the whole family is busy with either practices (Dad coaches and Step Mom is "Team Mother") or with games. The sports talent didn't limit itself to the boys, either; my lis sis was an outstanding soccer player in her day, too.

If you know me, you know I could give a rat's ass about sports. (It's fun to type phrases like that since I'm not allowed to say them in front of little ears anymore). But I love my brothers and so through the ages I have sat through the occasional football/baseball/basketball games and proudly cheered them on.

The older of my younger brothers was selected for the All Star team and had his big game Saturday night. I wasn't able to attend but from all accounts it was more outstanding footballing by lil bro - he played all 4 quarters and rec'd MVP. What an awesome way to end his high school football career.

So cheers to my little brother! I may not give a rat's ass about football, but I do care about whats important to him.

maintaining my low in selfishness

Just before the move I decided I better set aside a book to read, just in case there was some kind of miracle and Little Guy fell asleep on the plane or something like that. That miracle did not happen, but in the end I was glad I had the book available.

I picked New Spring, by Robert Jordan, the lone prequel in the internationally best selling series "Wheel of Time". I thoroughly enjoyed rereading it.

And this brings me back to my low in selfishness. Robert Jordan died of a rare disease last year, and one of my first ever blog posts was whining about how his death really put a crimp in my leisure reading plans.

But now, with his artfully placed words fresh in my mind, I feel pissed off and robbed all over again. His stories are more addictive than crack and now my supply is permanently cut off. Boo-hoo.

the brave new world

Things are beginning to settle down here. It's been 2 weeks since our stuff got here and there are boxes in almost every room of the house that still need to be unpacked. And a garage packed nearly solid. Hubby and I have entirely too much crap.

On the upside I am almost done unpacking our kitchen. Next to the garage that's probably the largest amount of work so I feel like I'm on the verge of having really accomplished something. My only problem is that as we come to the last few boxes of dishes, etc., it's getting really hard to find a place for it all. Have I mentioned we have too much crap? It doesn't help that when I moved in with Hubby we had a stalemate over dishes. I liked mine and didn't want to get rid off them. He felt the same about his. So we still have both. Plus somebody (I don't want to name names) insists on buying every cool looking beer mug he sees. And 8 of them so there's enough for everyone. (Kim, my favorite glasses are still the ones you got me in college).

I'm trying to psych myself up for a quick trip back to California next week for my aunts wedding. Psyching up is required because I will be flying by myself with Little Guy since Hubby can't get away from the new job so early on. Our flight experience with him has ranged from "Nightmare From Hell" to "Tolerable in comparison to the Nightmare From Hell". Not looking forward to it.

But we're are headed down there for a very special event. This year, on the 10th anniversary of my aunts commitment ceremony, they will be legally married. I'm misting up just typing about it. I'm so freaking happy for them. My Aunt B is seriously one of my favorite people on the face of the earth. I have so much respect for her as a human being. And she has always, always been there for me.

So I will submit myself to the mercy of the gods of toddler travel. Because it's for a woman who once told me she would crawl through broken glass to get to me if I ever needed her. And I've always known she meant it.

greetings from a new state

So we made it! Ok, so technically we made it exactly a week ago...but it's been one crazy week!

Let's go back to about 2 weeks ago. The movers showed up on Monday morning to pack up the house. In 8 hours our home went from completely normal to completely deconstructed into boxes. I was doing ok. The next day was loading day, and harder. My husband is for various reason completely disconnected from that house. But not me. I mean, we brought our baby home to that house. So many happy memories. And now so sad and empty.

But onward. After loading day we headed south to visit my mom, grandma and best friend for a few days. Tearful, gut-wrenching goodbyes.

Onward. Back to Merced to visit Hubby's family for a few days. And then *blink* it was time for my sister to take us to the airport. Tearful, gut-wrenching goodbyes.

Onward. On to the plane where thank God Almighty our Little Guy did about 150,000 times better than on our last plane trip.

And then we were here. Well, not here in our house. In first one hotel...and then another. Little Guy was thrown through a loop with all these different places and not sleeping well (this means neither was I). Finally last Tuesday our stuff arrived at our house and in the middle of all the moving craziness Hubby started his new job. Little Guy was happy to be reunited with his toys.

Now we are in the house we are renting and it's awesome. Not the endless boxes full of crap that are everywhere, but the house itself. The being together every single day. The unmistakable upgrade of town and community.

I miss our families. A lot. I'm sick of searching for stuff in boxes and instead finding useless crap that I don't want to deal with. I am especially sick of the demon known as Shelf Paper.

But above all, I am grateful to the bottom of my heart for the many, many gifts of this new life.