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The time has come, and its one month until our lease is up in our apartment and we decide to make another go at Northern California, with no friends and family around, or make the journey to the concrete jungle of Los Angeles or the heartland of Ohio. 5 years of living together in our own little world up in the foothills of Lake Tahoe has been quiet and a lot less chaotic than either one of us, my husband and I, had experienced in the years leading up to us moving out to Sacramento.
I'd like to think that it was worth it, this Sacramento Solitary Confinement Experiment. It was an accidental, self imposed experiment, at that. What do you do with a spunky Catholic girl and an Antiochian minded Jewish boy? First. you leave the schanenfreud landscape that is my inlaws, to a foreign landscape and a foreign concept: selflessness. Having our son has taught us by osmosis that we are not young forever, and that even the youngest at heart have to grow up sometime. Keeping a youthful optimistic spirit, but letting go of the dark recklessness, is the mark of true growth. We've let go of a lot of our 'isms and grown more tolerant of each other and ourselves.
In the course of our time in Northern California, I planned a wedding, got married in LA with friends (and the proverbial horrible Mean Girl drama that always entails with weddings, of course) and family, and decided we wanted to try to have children together. We were pregnant the first month of trying. We both knew. The first sign for me was red wine tasting like tomatoes, and a violent aversion to garlic, steak, eggs, and any Thanksgiving dish. Don't ask.
My pregnancy was healthy and I was a glowing, joyful, happy little mama. I dove right into decorating my son's room in a whimsical, bright, softened primary colors with monkeys, frogs, and other storybook type characters. I stood daily by the canopy that draped over my son's simple white crib, and sang songs to my belly while rocking in my rocking chair in the nursery. I took the dog for walks and wore bikinis to the pool, soaking up vitamin D and the last moments of my bulbous miracle in my once treadmill ripped body.
We had a pastel fuzzy kind of extraordinary experience in the hospital after I had my baby boy, Greyson. As sad as I was that not one family member or friend made the journey to be there for me, even coming to town to visit afterwards, I have to say that the time I had with Greyson and Murray in the hospital, and the time at home to bond with Greyson these past 18 months is irreplaceably precious in my heart. The doctor that delivered Grey was amazing and made me feel confident with my life as well as my son's baby life in his hands. Maybe it was all worth it, this stay out here alone, to have been blessed with a doctor and brand new facility available to me that was probably the best of any place I could have dreamed. I hold on to that those days when it almost breaks my heart to see the gleeful joy my son has in his eyes to communicate to everyone and every (dog) thing around him. He's so eager to know and be known, that its now apparent to me that the best thing to do is to get off this Gilligan's Island, and move to the Island of Misfit Toys.
Where is the Island of Misfit Toys? Well, for one it's a make believe place in that yearly Rudolph tv special, but namely for what I speak of here, is to say that it's a place I'm looking for that will have our peers. If you're kind of rootless and floating, yet still optimistically trying to blossom and thrive, that's me. I'm a lily pad, and this is my lily pad family.
They say that no family is perfect and every family is weird. Well, I believe that's true to the point that I think most people would say that most parents at least, fit into a specific assumed structure, ours did not and so we do not. When you have children, one of the things that comes to the forefront of your mind is having that child around trusted people that love him/her and will protect your child, and help mold your child in the ways you see as right. For lack of a better way to say it, you want to be around your parents and you want your parents to be proud of you as parents. You want little cousins and friends with little ones around for play dates. You want to usher your child into a tribe.
And so here we are. Its go time. Do we move back to Ohio? Do we move to LA? One thing is for sure. Our little man is growing mighty quickly.
Greyson new: squints his eyes in some kind of mock smile (hilarity), slowly spins in circles, wants to walk over being in his stroller, is bored and slightly manic in restaurant (greasy spoon) environment, is size 2T (but legs short so some 12 mo still fits him snug) and we almost have to go up again in diaper size. Grey has taken to chasing the cat around, and insists on saying hi, bye, and goodnight to our pets (along with the books, toys, chairs, walls, candles, etc.) Grey has started to become more finicky about eating (just as I was getting smug!), and his favorite way of self entertainment is to walk around with the broom, dustpan and various rugs, shaking them out. He also loves my mixing bowls, tupperware, and mixing spoons. He's mommy's helper. :) Grey also holds Murray's iPod/Pad in his hands and turns like a steering wheel like daddy's gaming. He's daddy's little buddy. Grey still says "nahnah" as mama, and though I correct him, a part of me is holding on to that last little bit of baby. He's just so beautiful and perfect and I know this time with him like this is going at a faster pace than I feel comfortable with.
