It’s over. The money’s in the bank. The fat lady has sung.
After more than three months under contract and seven – yes, SEVEN – missed closing dates, we finally completed the sale of our former home. There were plenty of times we doubted it would actually happen, but patience paid off, and we are again the owners of one lovely home. Perhaps now, we can actually finish furnishing it.
Today is the kind of day to make your heart sing, just because the sky is a cloudless blue, the air is clear and a tiny bit crisp, the maples are hinting at color, the deer’s coats are turning a dark gray… I could go on, but you get the picture. Fall is in the air.
Seasonal allergies try to dampen my enthusiasm, but there’s no dragging me down today. I LOVE fall. I plan in a few moments to dig out the fall wreath and pumpkin welcome mat. We don’t do ghoulish, so we skip Halloween decorating and go for the berries, fall leaves and pumpkins. (The resident spiders at the new house render Halloween decorations superfluous, anyway.) Just writing about fall decorations has me suddenly craving pumpkin bars.
Jon came home from the office this afternoon in time to join us for a little picnic lunch in the back yard, and then I pushed the kids on the tire swing for a while. I think that might just be what heaven’s going to look like: pushing happy kids on a tire swing on a gorgeous, first-taste-of-fall day. I hated to bring them inside for naps.
There were the usual stresses waiting for me indoors, but I threw open all the windows. I’ve discovered it’s harder to worry too much about double mortgages (yes, STILL) with a cool breeze ruffling your hair.
My firstborn headed off to Pre-K this morning. It’s a low-key Tuesday/Thursday program at a nearby Mother’s Day Out, but it felt like a pretty big deal around here. Corin was so excited, and definitely a little nervous. He was more emotional than usual over the little things. For example, there was a meltdown over using too much water to clean the yogurt from breakfast off his shorts, presumably for fear of a wet spot when he got to school. But true to form, he headed right through the door at drop-off with hardly a glance back. Those buckets of dinosaurs beckoned. I managed to avoid tears myself and am left to hope for more than one-word answers to questions about how his day went.
“Here’s a good-luck whack for you, brother.” (Actually, she was being sweet, and the really good news is she wasn’t trying to pull his hair. This is progress, people.)
“Put down the camera, mommy, and let’s get this show on the road.”
Lina misses him. She climbed into the little indoor wagon when we got home and waited for someone to push her around the house. (It didn’t happen – handle’s a tad low for mommy.) She has her first day of Mother’s Day Out on Tuesday. She’ll be going one day a week. This MDO program is just a few minutes away, and to our amazement, they have a teacher on staff with a Ph.D. in special education, focusing on Down syndrome. Several local kids with Down syndrome have gone through the program. We are looking forward to giving Lina an opportunity to spend a little time with some typical peers. Her therapists are pretty convinced she will be very peer-motivated in her development. I’m a big believer in kids doing most of their early learning in the home environment when possible, but I think one day a week will offer her a chance to explore a new environment and learn from kids her age. We are very lucky to have this option.
A busy holiday weekend approaches. Our family will celebrate Lina’s second birthday and my nephew’s fourth. We’ve planned a fun little picnic at the park, but thunderstorms are predicted. It may be a rather damp party. Stay tuned for pictures.
I remember just a few years ago being in the throes of fertility treatment hell and grieving the loss of the stereotypical family planning experience: have a lot of sex, wait a couple weeks, pee on a home test and watch the bright lines pop up. Hooray, we’re pregnant!
Instead, we waded through countless injections, complicated medical procedures, the agonizing wait for the blood tests and the phone calls from the nurse with the results. So many others have been there and know exactly what I mean, and many go through much worse. It was stressful, expensive, emotionally draining and – for me – physically taxing. Much of the emotional difficulty was coming to terms with how hard we had to work to get something that came so easily for many. I had a very bad relationship with home pregnancy tests.
Time has brought a new perspective. It was hard, and there have been a lot of hard times since then. And to be clear, feelings of loss are, well, normal. It’s just that now, with the luxury of time, I can look back and value what makes our story unique. I can recognize the incredible gifts that have come to us as a result of an off-the-beaten-path experience.
My dad is blind due to a biking accident in 1980. He wrote an article once called “Unusual Gifts.” In it, he explained why he believes his blindness is really a gift in disguise, allowing him experiences and purpose he would not have found otherwise. I realized recently that I feel very much the same about the unusual pieces of our experience. I wouldn’t have chosen them for myself, but that’s why I’m glad I’m not in control.
My daughter is the sunshine of my life. Truly, I can’t even explain how much joy she brings me. I sit and watch her, in awe of the beautiful little person she is. But someone prominent – I refuse to name him and provide further undeserved publicity – recently suggested that it would be immoral to knowingly bring someone like her into the world. She isn’t “normal,” and to a lot of people, that makes her unwanted. To me, she is priceless, perfect, a major part of the meaning in my every day. And thanks to the unusual path we took to her, we have a whole new branch of this crazy family tree to enjoy. Our lives would be poorer without those incredible people to love.
My son is four and growing up SO fast. He cracks me up with his wild flights of fancy, his funny observations of the world, his caution and bossiness, his need for his idea of order. (He recently organized the hangers in his closet by color.) He dazzles me with his adult vocabulary, his sweet affection, his curiosity and growing intellect. If it wasn’t for the hordes of doctors and nurses, the labs and procedures, he wouldn’t be here. Our firstborn would be someone else – equally loved, no doubt, but not this strawberry-blond boy walking around with my heart in his hands.
We have met so many amazing people through our experiences, and been able to share so many highs and lows with an incredible support system. We’ve had to learn faith of a truer kind, with nothing left to do but lean on the only One who knows the future. We’ve had to build a marriage that can withstand a pounding and another pounding, shuddering and rattling but holding firm. We are, without question, better people, because we’ve had to be; because that’s what God can do in the midst of the far-from-normal.
I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating: I do not mean to suggest God sends hardship. He is not the author of pain and heartache. We live in a messed-up world where things do not go according to God’s plan. There are some griefs that are far, far beyond explanation or reason, the senseless result of a broken, hurting planet. But God does have the ability to pick up the pieces and build them into something beautiful and good, something better than we could have chosen for ourselves, a monument to who He is and what He wants for His people.
I suppose none of this is really new; it’s more along the theme of this blog’s title. I guess I just want to say this: normal is overrated. In all the ways it has manifested in our family, the abnormal has become beautiful. If you find yourself miles from normal and wishing for something simpler, let me offer you hope that the path less traveled really can be breathtaking in all the right ways. Acknowledge pain, grieve loss, but then, look up. There really is joy ahead.
Lina has hit a major new milestone. We just marked one week of absolutely no bottles. She is drinking all her fluids from straw and sippy cups.
Infant feedings were painful with both my babies. Corin has his own story of excruciatingly difficult feedings and nearly a full year of exclusive pumping so he could enjoy the benefits of breast milk. Lina started out pretty well with breastfeeding but didn’t have the oral muscle tone to get what she needed. Even the bottle was a long, hard struggle. You may remember the anguish of trying to find a bottle she would take, and then the many, many months of difficult feedings where she leaked out as much milk as she took in (again, poor oral muscle tone). I once more found myself tethered to that loathsome but necessary pump. We jury-rigged latex nipples to make them faster-flow as she got older, and then those got old and stretched out and we jury-rigged some more, until all of a sudden she would take the silicone Avent bottles we’d used with Corin, and life got easier. Then began the LONG process of introducing about two dozen different types of sippy cups. We saw a feeding therapist a couple times, but Lina really just needed time and practice.
Ultimately, she has been successful with the exact same cups Corin preferred – the Munchkin straw cups and the Avent soft spout cups with the no-spill valve removed. At first, she made a huge mess drinking from them. We would have to hold a towel under her chin to avoid soaking her entire body. But in the last few weeks, those oral muscles have strengthened, the coordination came together, and she is drinking milk and water with very little spillage. She holds the cup herself and handles the whole thing like a pro (except for that whole throwing the cup thing).
The last step was figuring out how to deliver her thyroid medication. It had always gone in her morning bottle, and my finicky girl won’t eat applesauce or yogurt. Thanks to a great suggestion from grandma, we tried mixing it into a little pudding, and wa-lah – farewell, bottles.
As she cruises around the house behind her push toy, I’m realizing that my baby is very quickly disappearing. There has been something nice about her babyhood taking a little slower pace, but it may have lulled me into forgetting that she really is growing up so fast. She will be turning two in exactly a month. TWO!! She is fiercely independent, on the go and into everything. A few days ago, she discovered she can remove the HVAC vent covers and stuff things down the vents. I pulled several shoes out of the duct yesterday. This is unlikely to end well. But then she crawls to me, pulls up on my legs, puts her arms up, and wraps her arms tight around my neck as I hold her close, and I almost stop breathing to better savor the feeling.
And so goes the parental dance, celebrating the milestones with pride while mourning the loss of a little one who is every day a little bigger and a little more independent.
Although, I’m not going to lie: I don’t miss those bottles.
I hit a low last night. We got some discouraging news about the house (not the new one – the old one we can’t quite seem to get rid of), and I was struggling with not being able to both unpack and keep the house clean or even something resembling neat, not to mention the stacks of laundry piling up and the full schedule of appointments over the next several days. My insomnia is back, and it all felt like too much.
This morning, we rushed out the door for Lina’s 9 a.m. physical therapy appointment. I ran to the grocery store to pick up a few things to get us through the week and returned to the therapy center to find Lina had screamed through the whole session. (She had been doing so much better about that!) We came home for lunch, and I crammed food in my mouth while popping up a dozen times to address the various needs of my kids, which included mopping up a full cup of milk dumped all over the table, chair and floor.
Normally, Lina has speech therapy on Tuesday afternoons. I discovered a couple weeks ago that a fantastic farmers market runs weekly at exactly the time we pass on our way home. The speech therapist canceled for today, but I decided to take the kids up to the farmers market, anyway. It’s a bit of a drive, and I wasn’t sure it was the right call. But within minutes of pushing the stroller onto that little field of produce stands, I felt the weight on my shoulders lift and my cloud of gloom dissipate. The weather was incredible – low-80s, sunny, a light breeze – and the fresh air, the gorgeous piles of produce, the live John Mayer covers, the families on their picnic blankets, the couple dancing by the food truck, the throngs of children playing in the dry creek bed and swarming the playground equipment… Somehow, it was the perfect reminder of how little it matters that my house is dirty and still piled with boxes. For the cherry on top, Jon was able to meet us there for a little food truck grilled cheese before heading to a late work meeting.
Life is so messy and busy. It gets HARD, and not always with the big stuff. Sometimes, it’s a lot of everyday stuff piling up and smothering my joy. Today, the laundry and cleaning waited while I found my joy somewhere between the peaches and the purple okra.
Also, Lina totally kissed a boy.
There are days when just getting through normal tasks – like, say, cleaning 2 1/2 baths – makes me feel as if I deserve a medal. You have not earned your parenting spurs until you have scrubbed a toilet (which, by the way, is covered in pee stains from a pre-schooler who has absolutely not perfected his aim) while a wailing 22-month-old clings to you as if her life depended on your attention at that exact millisecond. (I mean, she has a cruel mother who won’t let her play with the bottle of bleach or the toilet brush. Who wouldn’t be screaming about that?)
Also, darn you, BBC Earth, for including in your Snow Babies documentary footage of a baby and mother penguin who are separated, abruptly ending a little peace and quiet on the pre-schooler front with tears and trauma.
And that’s it for the self-pity this rainy Friday. We’re looking forward to a “knock stuff out” kind of weekend around here. I say bring it on. Clearly, I can handle it. I just weathered toilet scrubbing, after all.
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*Note: The above is why I readily admit to normally hiring a cleaning lady every two weeks. She is so worth it. But alas, not in the budget until we can offload that other house.
I spent the earlier part of my day scrubbing the last of the blinds and wiping down ceiling fans. As a reward, I am blogging from the back yard while the kids play in the grass. It. is. awesome.
We were supposed to close on the sale of the previous house yesterday. Obviously, that didn’t happen. Closing has been rescheduled for July 30. A lot of projects for the new house are on hold until that happens, including furniture and shelving we need in order to unpack most of the remaining boxes. We’re in unpacking limbo. You would think having entire rooms still empty except for boxes would make it hard to settle in. Instead, it has been somewhat shocking how quickly we have felt at home. Maybe it’s partly because we’ve had to quickly jump back into a busy routine, with Jon’s hefty work schedule and me ferrying Lina to therapy appointments and keeping up with the daily business of family life. It has meant rapidly learning how to navigate the area and feeling grateful for the times we can be at home.
The weather has also been incredible. The last couple days have barely hit 80, which is so rare for Tennessee in mid-July. We have spent hours enjoying the outdoors.
I say all this not to brag, but to say how truly grateful we are for this little spot where we can be at home, even amidst the continued moving mess. Life will be exhausting and rather chaotic for a while, but we have been able to carve out some bit of normalcy, for which I am truly thankful.
And now the awesomeness has ended and both kids are fussing to go inside. Break over – time to head in.
We survived the move! One week in our new house, and we’re still bleary-eyed, bruised up and generally exhausted but feeling a little closer to settled each day.
It was an epic day, that Moving Day. We hired professional movers, who did a wonderful job handling our stuff but underestimated the job by about six hours and half a truckload. It made for a very long day for all of us. Jon pitched in to help unload the truck here at the new house on the first run while I tried to clean around the stuff still left at the old one. The movers arrived for round two at about 8:30 p.m. At 10 p.m., I said my final good-byes to our little house on Holloway Court, mopped myself out the front door and made the trek south to the piles of boxes waiting at the new house. Jon had done a remarkable job getting the kids to bed and the bedroom to as cozy a state as possible. (Of course, there was also the incident where he locked us out of the house before I’d stepped foot inside and had to kick open the back door to get us back in…) We finally fell into bed exhausted at midnight, a pattern that has continued for the past week. I am certain we would not have survived without the generous help of so many family and friends.
I haven’t had a lot of time to reflect, but there’s nothing like the labor of cleaning and arranging a home to foster the necessary bonding. I’ve had bouts of homesickness for the familiarity of the old house, and depression creeps in when I look at how much work still lies ahead. The cure, I’ve discovered, is simply stepping into the back yard for a few moments. Lying in the hammock, staring up at the leaves above me, watching the dozens of fireflies that magically appear at dusk, glancing over at the deer wandering through the woods just up the hill… It’s impossible not to fall in love all over again.
There has been a steady procession of wildlife through our yard since we moved in. A doe and two fawns make frequent visits, and flocks of 20-plus turkey have paraded right by our deck and windows. Five horned buck hung out on the lawn for a while a few days ago. It is beyond our wildest hopes, and those joys have made the transition easier for us all.
The truth is this house feels remarkably comfortable and has since we first saw it. It’s not especially fancy – at least not by Brentwood standards – but it feels like us. I look out the window from our bedroom as I type, down the quiet cul de sac across to the wooded hills surrounding us, and I know: I am home.
It was a big day in the Sharp family.
These kids have taken to our new property like fish to water. Watching them run and play in our little corner of the outdoors puts something right in my soul that I hadn’t realized was out of alignment. We have a LOT of work to do over the next 2 1/2 weeks, but moving day can’t come soon enough.
A Dash of the Unexpected 