House Search

I feel lately like I’m living in an HGTV episode, and I’d like to turn the channel off for a bit. It’s been an exhausting roller coaster experience. I’m figuring out what’s important for me, then for D and I, then factoring the strong opinions of our parents, in-laws, friends, siblings, and realtor, all of whom mean well but none of whom are able to think for us completely. The last time I felt like this was while wedding planning, except a wedding is a tenth of the cost and leaves you with a few artsy photos on the wall rather than toilets to scrub every week.

I’m nearly completely fed up with the realtor industry. I mean, on one side, how annoying must a job be when your entire week is dictated by the whims of a potentially indecisive, picky couple who may not even buy anything? On the other, how annoying is it to not be able to see a house unless you go through some potentially opinionated, inefficient person who is naturally motivated not entirely for your interests?

Part of the difficulty are all the scenarios. There is our dream house, which would probably be some sprawling, airy ranch out in woodsy horse country. There is the suburban house that would most fit us for the next twenty years, which everyone seems to be saying is some huge place in an upscale neighborhood. There is the suburban house that would fit us just for the next few years to buy, and another to rent. We’re leaning more and more towards the latter, which I’m hoping will give us more time to figure it all out, without the pressure of worrying about resale value.

For the first time I’m coming up against what everyone perceives as the standard of living we should have, or will want. The buzz words “two-physician family” have been thrown around so much by pushy realtors that I’m starting to wish I’d never heard it. I’m just not there, and not sure I ever want to be. I have this strangely stubborn antipathy for anything that could be termed a mansion. I don’t want our kids growing up in some neighborhood filled with luxury cars and kids with a ton of toys. Maybe I’ll change my mind after we have a boatload of kids, but I hope it’ll be for the right reasons, and not just because we have the money to do it.

I think I’m at the point now where I’ve seen too much and am back to figuring out what’s most important. A place close enough for D’s long commute that I can see him more each day. A place close enough to my parents for our kids to readily be around people who love them. A down-to-earth, family-filled neighborhood. A place structured such that the kids can run safely around and we can be comfortable. The rest doesn’t really matter much. I think. That’s good to remember.

In Which I Vent

D and I lost it in public with a former neighbor today. Might be a first for me. I realize we shouldn’t have lost our temper, but I also don’t blame D for yelling at someone who was yelling extremely nasty things to me in front of the baby without even giving us a chance to explain. And it was all over how we left our trash in the pickup spot behind their house.

I’m tired of living in an antagonistic, selfish neighborhood. I’m tired of living in a place where if you leave your trash out in a bag instead of a can on trash day, you get called in to the police. Where people shovel snow from their sidewalk but leave the three inches connecting it to where you shoveled because technically it is on your property. Where people call in to complain there is too much noise when you’re trying to help push a postal car stranded in the snow on the street. Where people get upset when you park in a shared parking spot because it is closer to their house than yours.

I’m tired of living in a city where you can’t honk because you might get shot. Where people double park instead of making the effort of pulling into a spot by the curb two feet away. Where finding old beer cans or dog poop over your front step is a normal thing.

I tend to think the best of everyone. I tend to talk nicely to strangers. Dave is perhaps appropriately a bit less naïve, and I’m glad I’m married to someone who isn’t afraid to stand up for us, but I’m tired of being in a place that forces him to do that.

We love where we live now. In less than a week I’ve met countless friendly families, ten year-old girls who ask to hold E and moms who take walks with us. If we left our trash out wrong they would probably offer to help us move it back. There are large green spaces where kids run out playing all the time, without anyone complaining about the noise. There are scooters left out on various properties that just become community toys. The houses here cost half of the houses in our old neighborhood, the people are more modest and the place less impressive, but I would pick living here any time.

It makes me think about how important community is, how important the atmosphere of the neighborhood is. It matters more than some flashy house, and maybe I wouldn’t want E to grow up in some flashy neighborhood anyway. I think back on how content I was growing up in a modest house, how I never once envied my friends in bigger houses because we were happy at home. There are other things I’d rather do with the money we earn, and I’m glad we made this temporary move if only to drive that point home.

Journal Excerpt

I think I could write an analytical essay on the movie Up. Or I could quote it in its entirety. E has moved on from Baby Signing Times: after asking to watch it about ten times a day for months, she woke up one day and decided it was incredibly boring and NO-NO-NO how could I make her watch something like that? Now it’s thirty minutes of Up every single day on repeat. It is literally the only thing she wants to watch. She insists we watch it through to the end of the credits. She keeps a running commentary going during the movie, which means pointing out “baby” (what she calls anyone under three feet), “doggy,” “balloon,” “bird,” and “house.” It’s like they purposely made a story out of all her favorite words.

I was thinking today how both main adult characters are quite similar, both maniacally pursuing a somewhat comical goal at the cost of forming meaningful human relationships. Both are driven to some degree by hurt, Carl because he’s lost Ellie and feels he was never able to give her what she wanted, and Charles because he called a liar and publicly humiliated. Muntz never learns to let his bird go, but Carl does, first his possessions and eventually his house.

It’s actually not a bad movie to watch while house-shopping. Their house was obviously well-loved and cared for, but it wasn’t everything in the end.

I think E watches it for the little Asian boy. Whenever she wants to watch it she says “more baby.. more baby.”

Big Sister

Here she is at the place we just moved from, drinking her ovaltine milk and dutifully wearing her big sister shirt. When asked, "who is a big sister?" she points to herself, and when asked "where is mommy's baby?" she lifts up my shirt and points somewhere south of my bellybutton (she used to point at my bellybutton but I felt her anatomy should be corrected)- but really poor thing has no idea what's coming.

Journal Excerpt

I think my favorite part of the day with her is right before her bath, when I get her naked. She adores being naked. She screams and squeals with happiness, running down the halls and around her room, little legs pumping up and down in their baby way and big belly sticking out in front of her. Her legs are so supple and still chubby; her belly is so soft, her back and bum so smooth. She likes laying her blanket over the pillows on the ground and then falling on top of them, belly down and butt in the air, and pretending I can’t see her until I suddenly tickle and kiss her all over and she laughs so hard she loses her breath. As soon as she catches it she says “more?”

When I see her lying curled up naked like that on the pillow she seems so small, so unblemished and soft. She has no scars, no stiffness, no pretense. I heard someone say once that being a mother is like having your heart walk around outside of your body. It’s something like that. It’s hard to know until you are one. Most of the time I say that in the context of complaining about something, but today I’m thinking I wouldn’t give up one minute.

Will

I’m not really sure what the terrible two’s look like for everyone else, but as best as I can tell, for her it means a collision between her incredibly strong will and the ability to express or achieve it. Sometimes it’s not subtle what she wants but I decide she shouldn’t have it. But more often, I can’t tell what she wants, or she wants to do something by herself but can’t.

It’s quite amazing, this will thing. What is so amazing is not so much what she wants but how badly she wants it, and how specifically she wants it: not just a what, but a when (NOW) and a how. She wants the cucumbers, but not for me to hand her one, or put one on her plate; she wants me to bring the whole bowl of cucumbers over, set it on the table precisely where she’s pointing, and stab them with a fork. She wants to read a book with me on the chair, but not sitting on my lap—she wants to squeeze her butt next to mine on the same chair, but only after laying her blanket down, wrinkle-free, exactly where she plans to plop said butt.

And she wants all of it now. As in, mind-readingly fast. That apple juice should just appear refilled in my cup; I don’t get why it takes you five seconds to actually retrieve it from the fridge, unscrew my cup top, and pour it in. I’ve tried explaining the concept of patience to her, which I realize is completely idiotic but makes me feel better.

The worst is probably when I don’t understand what she’s saying. She keeps repeating herself over and over, growing increasingly frustrated and tearful, while I actually feel sort of mentally incompetent, like any other person would understand what “ba-duh” means but I don’t (it means pickle apparently). Today I figured out that “do-do,” in addition to meaning dog, her pacifier, and her bib, also now means crackers.

So you can imagine things get pretty exhausting. I chalk it up to her developing a will, but lacking the conceptual and contextual understanding of why what she wants, in the way and time that she wants it, isn’t necessarily good or possible. I sometimes forget how differently my mind works than hers; how she lacks the ability to think beyond the concrete, to understand time, or to think of anything other than herself and how she feels.

I think this is how God must see us often. His mind, his way, is higher than mine infinitely more than mine is higher than a two year-old’s. I think back on the things I’ve wanted so badly in life: to conceive at a certain time, to not feel this pain, to do it on my own. What I really want is for E to gladly submit her will to mine, to trust me, because I love her: how much more must God desire this of us?

But of course the beautiful thing about her will is now she can show her affection, and this is a wonderful thing: to hear her ask for my hand to hold, call me alone “ma-ma,” feel her run up to hug me from behind. She even once said she loved me (“ai4 nee3”) though it could have been an accident. Tonight I thought that’s what she was saying but it turned out she wanted to watch “er-nie” on sesame street.

And Then There Were Four

I think I am finally at liberty to say that we are expecting a second. If I wait any longer I will probably be in labor by the time I write anything; I’m about half-way through the pregnancy now. Just past the wanting-to-puke stage, which is too bad because I so badly wanted to complain in public about it.

Most of this pregnancy has been me saying, I definitely don’t remember feeling this way last time—I don’t remember feeling so nauseous I had to lie curled up in bed without any noise or movement. I don’t remember feeling like a bowling ball was pushing around my intestines every time I moved. I don’t remember feeling so incapacitated with fatigue. Working up the energy to shower was the worst. Plus there was that awful smell of the soap. I probably wouldn’t have bothered for the entire three months if I didn’t have to go out.

And of course most of it was D saying, yeah, you said this the last time. The exact same thing.

Except I probably didn’t say the part about how it felt changing a stinky diaper when you already feel like puking. People say the second time around, pregnancy is harder but labor is easier. That’s probably true; I don’t know if the symptoms were worse, or if I just felt that way because I had to take care of an eighteen-month old at the same time.

But I am trying not to lose the magic. The first time around, there was so much magic and wonder. I walked around feeling like I had a secret, the best secret in the world. We read about how she was the size of a blueberry, then a grapefruit. I talked to her sometimes, thought about her a lot. To be honest, I’ve spent most of the last few months complaining about feeling chronically ill. Wishing I could feel myself again. Missing having a normal relationship with food.

But I don’t want to lose any wonder with this second. This time it was a little harder getting pregnant; this time I felt the loss of wanting another baby but not having one. That period lasted only part of a year but it ran deep and felt long. So I know, perhaps more thoroughly than I did with E, that this one is a stroke of grace, a gift, a wonder. I’m finally stepping back and thinking on that more. It helps that I’m finally able to think about more than not puking.