Our house is alllmmmoooossssttttt sold. We are so close! All we're waiting on is a closing date, but I refuse to let myself get excited about this until I'm sitting in a lawyer's office, handing over the keys. The inspections are over, the repair requests are over, the appraisal is over....but we're not done yet! That being said, we are officially a "dual city" family! We go back to our old house as often as we can to pack up boxes and mow the lawn, but all of our day-to-day goings-on happen at Casa Eiben. We moved in with Mom and Jay almost a month ago, and we couldn't be more grateful for their open arms and extra bedrooms. Sylvia sleeps as well here as she ever did at our house. We have a giant basement for our TV, computer, and toys. We have in-house babysitters who agree to watch Sylvia at any given moment. Not to mention, we both started our new jobs and we absolutely, one hundred and twenty percent, LOVE our schools and our students. We could not be any more blessed.
So why am I so sad?
Well, I realized something about memory while I was watching HGTV. Memory is visual. There was a woman who got emotional about tearing down a wall in her house because she could picture her grandma sitting against it and doing...whatever she did, I can't remember. But I thought to myself, "Seriously?! It's a wall, lady! Get over it!" Then I almost lost my breath when I realized EXACTLY how she was feeling. I only get sad about our old house when I visualize our old house, which I force myself not to do almost every night. I picture our backyard, and Sylvia with her plastic wagon, or Sylvain watering the garden, or my red rocking chairs on the front porch....and ohhhhhhh, how I miss it SO MUCH! All it takes is a split second of green grass or hydrangeas or roses for me to absolutely LOSE IT.
So I put off this post for a long time. I didn't want to sit down and cry. I don't have that kind of time to waste, especially since we're back in school. But our staff meeting was cancelled this afternoon, and I left all of my work at school on purpose so that I'd have nothing else to do but sit down and write after Sylvia went to bed. And here I am.
I think just putting down in words how much I miss that place will help me not miss it so much anymore. If I admit that we had wonderful summer and post some pictures to prove it, I won't feel guilty about a month of not blogging. I thought pretty hard about the first picture I'd post after such a long hiatus, and I think this one is the best. It's how I always want to remember our first sweet house.
Look at my sweet Nugget! She has grown so much lately. She understands everything we say, which is scary. And she has so much spunk and energy that it's hard for me to keep up with her at times, but I always, always, ALWAYS admire her for being so raw and honest. When she screams, she's got something to say. When she cries, she's truly and deeply hurt. And when she leans forward and slobbers a kiss all over my mouth, or when she throws her arms up and wraps them around my neck, it's nothing but pure, innocent and true love at it's finest. Oh, she is my world! She does this crinkled nose, toothy grin that melts my heart. She bounces and dances and laughs like no child I've ever seen before! I can't help but smile every second I'm with her, especially now that we're not together all day. On that note, let me shout out a giant THANK YOU to our awesome care giver, Laura. She and her girls are a saving grace for our family. I don't worry about Sylvia for one single second during the day because she has so much fun playing with her new friends. I love them dearly, and I love my Nugget beyond words.
So when all is said and done, when I finish crying about how much I miss our back yard and my own bed, I come to the conclusion that I have absolutely nothing to cry about. Because at the end of the day, we have each other. We may go our separate ways in the morning, but I go to bed next to the sweetest husband a girl could ask for, across the hall from the sweetest baby a Mama could want. We may not know where we're going to live in the near future, but we'll live somewhere together. In the midst of hurricanes, and deployed soldiers, and starving babies in Somalia...I'm just a big fat wuss crying about nothing.
I have a lot more to post about our transitional journey, but I think that's enough for tonight. I still need to add pics of our awesome vacation to Lake Erie at the end of JULY. Yeah, I'm a little behind.
