Humes

Best window in the whole world. 

I remember the exact moment when I realized we'd outgrown our house. A friend dropped off boxes and boxes of unsold yard sale toys and clothes for Millie, who was about 18 months at the time. The house suddenly looked like a storage unit for a toddler (and her magpie mother).

Zach and I considered renovating and expanding the house, even asking his sister to do mock-ups of the space to show a contractor. We love the house, the neighborhood, the location. It's home.

In the end, we decided it was too risky to undertake a huge renovation. We started looking at houses, finding a great home in a good neighborhood: very close to the Greenline, within walking distance to a good school and our favorite ice cream parlor. I'm looking forward to moving into this house, a new space to create memories. But, because I'm me, can't help feeling all the feelings when it comes to the little house on Humes.

My life in the house started before me--with Ronni. I moved in about a year after Zach and I started dating. Ronni and I bickered. We left each other notes inspired by William Carlos Williams poems (Forgive me/for eating your fries/they were so crispy and delicious). That note is still on the refrigerator. We pretended we were French--obviously this meant eating baguettes, drinking wine, and watching Amelie. We woke up early one morning to watch Kate Middleton marry Prince William. One night, I was laying in bed and Ronni knocked on my bedroom door, still wearing her Starbucks apron. "Lola's gone." I laid down, feeling a mixture of relief that my grandmother was no longer suffering, and wonder at where, exactly, she'd gone.

After Ronni moved to Austin, Zach moved into Humes. I painted the living room blue while watching "All My Children," studied for my graduate school finals, accepted a job offer to be a school counselor in the dining room. The night before our wedding, I spent the night alone in the house--maybe one of my favorite memories. On our wedding day, we inexplicably gave all our keys to our siblings, thus locking ourselves out.

Living with a dude. Also, experiments with a gallery wall, which I won't be doing again.

After we came back from London, I blithely look a pregnancy test in the bathroom. I remember leaning on the washing machine when two lines appeared, thinking I might pass out. Humes is where we took home our little baby. On our first night home after her birth, she was sitting in a bouncer (that she hated) while we ate dinner, and I thought, "Look, it's all normal now. It's totally fine." But in reality, it felt like a total stranger moved in and I had to act cool about it. We stumbled through those first weeks and months of parenthood at Humes. Gradually, we became accustomed to and fell deeply in love with our little stranger. Millie took her first steps and said her first words, told me "I love you, Mommy" randomly after I read her a bedtime story. It made those difficult and endless nights worth it.

Spent a lot of time putting the bouncer in various rooms of the house, hoping Little Stranger would prefer a certain location. Nope!

Also spent a lot of time breastfeeding in the computer room to stay awake.

I will miss our neighborhood. The streets which make up my routes have seen everything I wrote about in the previous paragraphs and much more--more joy, elation, frustration, and sadness than I could express. I can tell you where exactly I hit one, two, or three miles, and how many loops it would take to make six. Even before we started looking at houses I'd begun doing long runs through our neighborhood instead of driving to a trail--I wanted to stay close to home.

This street.

Would we have stayed at Humes if it had an extra bedroom or two? Probably. But, it's time for change. I'm happy we have so many pictures of Millie's first years in this house. It's part of her history, the same way Nokomis and Chesapeake Lane are part of mine. It's mythic now. Humes will now be the setting for someone else's story. I hope it's as good for the next person, people, or family who calls it home as it was for me.

New Year, New(ish) Me!

I call this picture, "Where I would sit and contemplate while drinking coffee, if I lived in West Milford, New Jersey and had child care for the afternoon."

According to my dashboard, I published exactly one post in 2016.  I don't have any plausible excuses (busy, interest in maintaining a blog waxes and wanes like the moon's gravitational pull), but the past year did open my eyes to how incredibly fast life passes. I blinked, and now have a busy,  healthy, strong-willed toddler. I do see the value in recording my thoughts and experiences, if only for me. It's as though life has suddenly been put in hyperdrive and I want to hang on to every moment.

These are the phrases I will associate with 2016: pain and suffering, 30s-life crisis. Breaking it down:

Pain and Suffering:  The world is a pretty strange place, full of people and events which make you wonder if humans have evolved at all. Beyond the mostly horrible, tragic news, a lot of people I care about had experiences ranging from difficult to unfathomable. Being fired from jobs. Cancer, which can go fuck itself a million times. Suicide. Knowing and seeing all this happen, and helpless to do anything other than pray. Feeling hopeless.

30s-life Crisis:  For the past three years, I'd been in a pregnancy/infant/baby haze, only to emerge in 2016 and realize that I'm 35. Thirty-five! But I just turned 22! There have been so many moments like this, living in a headspace where my mind is constantly swimming. (Drowing?) Wondering who I am now. Wondering if I'm qualified to raise a little person. Comparing myself, my house, my running splits with childless twentysomethings on instragram. Looking at my face in the mirror and seeing lines and gray hair that don't equate to the perception I have of myself. I still feel so young and like I have a lot of growing up to do. Will I ever feel like an "adult?" Do I want to feel like one, and what does it mean if I generally don't want to ever feel like one?

Despite the general blah of 2016, it hasn't been a totally horrible time. Some of the good:

New job.

My clean desk and incorrect name plate at the beginning of the school year.

After spending several years working in the world of early childhood and elementary, I've transitioned to middle and high school. It's been baptism by fire (how did I survive the month of September?) but I love it. Some people are meant to work with the littles. I am not one of those people. I do miss the students and my friends at St. Aug; it was a blessing to work in early childhood while my own was so tiny because I learned so much. But when the opportunity to move on came, I knew it was time. Talking to high school students about college--even  middle school girl drama--feels more natural.

Dawn, my ride-or-die for the past 2 years. I miss her like whoa.

But now I can write detentions for kids who won't do yoga, so yay!

Charitable giving. I gave to charities, causes, crowd-funding campaigns, homeless people, anything that spoke to my heart. When I realized how many causes and organizations I gave to last year, I felt a wave of happiness. Maybe I am an adult?

Little travels. It was all about familiar places: Bentonville. Chattanooga. Wayne. Brooklyn. It was good and grounding to be around family. I wish we lived closer.

Felix and Millie on the farm, Alstead NJ.

Millie dancing with Gocki, also on Farm.

We paid $32 for this picture, Chattanooga. 

The Amazeum in Bentonville!

At Maison Premiere in New York, Ronni giving her best alluring gaze

Basically what I live for, New York.

I call this photograph, "Sisters hangry walking to get pizza at sunset," Brooklyn

Still running. I ran three 5Ks and a half marathon in 2016. No personal records, but several moments of success when I thought it was impossible. That's why I love running: it's taught me that I can do hard things. I love the community among runners, especially women.

I call this photo, "A running team that does more eating and drinking together than actual running."

My little person.

She is a powerhouse. How can such a small thing simultaneously drain my energy and give me strength at the same time? She is magic. (That is, when she isn't throwing exorcist-style tantrums, demanding I play with legos, demanding chocolate, or hitting me.) I have so much to write about her.

On our way to Frozen Superfan Convention. It was at Whole Foods. But really, she drank the Frozen kool-aid. There is no escaping.

She actually sits still to get her toes painted, one of only 2 instances she's actually ever still. The other one is watching YouTube videos of talking crayons on her Lala's phone.

This is her squad.

Some of my hopes for the new year:

Less comparing myself to others
More travel, maybe somewhere new
One unassisted pull-up (on a pull-up bar, not a reference to potty training, but on that note)
Non-traumatic potty training for all parties involved
Take pictures with a real camera and not a phone
Continue giving to different charities and causes
A nose piercing (kind of kidding, but also not kidding)
Nurture all relationships in my life
Do a better job of planning meals

We're married! 

This is a picture from way earlier in the year, but she lives for her Lala and Gocki.

Heres to a turnt up 2017! And maybe add stop talking like a teenager to my list of resolutions?

There you have it: a list of pretty standard resolutions. I'll end this post with my favorite vague and frustrating phrase: We'll see!