This Saturday Matt, Eva, and I are moving to a new house in the suburbs, about an hour from where we live now.
We are doing this for several reasons – we want more space (in the house and yard), we want to live closer to Matt’s work (right now he commutes about two hours a day), and some of us (me!) are tired of living in a crowded urban area.
Even though I am not fond of DC metro area, I do love the neighborhood we’ve lived in for the last six years. Matt has lived here longer – he bought our house in 2002.
Del Ray is quiet, family-friendly, and walkable. If I walk a half mile I can get to: two playgrounds, a library, two coffee shops, a UPS store, my VW dealership, two grocery stores, a CVS, and a number of fantastic hole-in-the-wall restaurants.
I didn’t realize what a goldmine that was until I looked at a map of our new neighborhood and discovered I would walk to… nothing. Well, there is a nice wooded trail I’m looking forward to running on, but I’ll need to drive to the playground and library, which makes me sad.
We actually signed contracts to sell our house and buy the new one in January, so I’ve spent the last few months saying good-bye to my neighborhood by going on as many walks as possible. It has been a particularly beautiful spring:
We’ve never had tulips bloom in our front yard, but this one popped up this year to say good-bye:
Click through to the largest view – it’s stunning.
So good-bye Del Ray and Alexandria, I will remember you fondly. But I am looking forward to my new quiet, suburban dwelling, where spring of 2012 will look something like this:
My grandmother passed away in her sleep last night. It was both expected and sudden, and I had no idea what to do after receiving the news. Work and do yoga, as I normally do during Eva’s nap? I decided drinking coffee and looking at family photo albums would be better way to start grieving.
Tata loved our blog, so I thought I would share some of my favorite pictures in this space, where her comments will be missed.
Above, Tata is second from the right, lunching with friends at a jazz club. I love the caption on this one – Tata and her friend on the right are wearing snoods, which were very popular during World War II and “great for bad hair days.” If only I had a digital copy of Tata in her Zoot Suit – that would be right next to this picture. (Click on all pictures for larger versions.)
Tata is in the middle row on the right on the stairs at Nat King Cole’s house. Yes, that Nat King Cole. The caption says he wasn’t there the night they were invited over.
This is our family heirloom or, as I call it, The Famous Jazz Picture. Of the four women in the picture, Tata is furthest to the right. There are some famous musicians in this picture – I want to say that’s Duke Ellington on the bottom right, but I can’t remember for sure, and my captioned photo is in storage.
Eva’s latest favorite book is The Cat in the Hat. Or as she likes to call it, “Meeeeoooow. Hat-tah.” Apparently love of The Cat is contagious – here I am reading it to Eva, three of her second cousins, and my mother:
According to my quick Wikipedia research (forgive me, I’m tired), The Cat in the Hat was first published in 1957. My mother remembers reading it, I remember reading it, and it seems the newest generation is entranced. Though these days I’m on Team Fish – that cat makes me nervous…
Note: In this picture am reading the book on my Droid, but we read a hardback at home.
You would think there would be a story behind this much laughing, but it was just a giggly kind of day. Please enjoy three minutes of Eva losing her mind.
Have you ever wondered what life looks like from a mother’s perspective?
As I put up a picture from storytime captioned “Mom’s-eye view,” I thought, “I think I have a few pictures now with this very caption.” I ran a search in our photo gallery, and found five pictures. So here you go – this is what life looks like from my vantage point.
April 2009: The “nursery preparation while pregnant” view. I’d forgotten how big that belly looked – thank goodness that view is temporary.
July 2010: The “toes in the breeze on a walk” view.
August 2010: The “toddler holding knees” view.
December 2010: The “toddler tugging at clothing” view.
February 2011: The “hold onto Mama’s shoes during storytime” view. (Also note the girls in the top left corner holding hands. So cute.)
Eva and I entertained a few more contractors in our house early this week. (Why all the contractors? That’s another blog entry for the relatively near future.) These contractors had to shut down the main power supply to our house for most of Monday and Tuesday.
Eva has been cutting her two-year molars for a few weeks now, so between being cooped up in the dark and the pain, we vacillated between giddy and screaming. And I mean the kind of screaming that causes all of your neighbors to look out the window to see if someone is dying in the street, only to find it’s just a toddler who likes the sound of her own voice.
To entertain ourselves we of course did a ton of reading. It was more structured than usual as I tried to conserve books, and we ended up with a good book pile.
Beyond reading, the theme of both days was technology. On Monday Eva took a shine to my card reader. She tried to plug it in her teddy bear and took a pretend nap with it. I would love to know what she thought would happen – or maybe something did happen and I was too old to see it.
On Monday, I tried to teach Eva to take videos with the camera, but it didn’t work out. Instead, we had fun with the video camera on my cell phone. “Eeeeeee!” is what Eva calls herself, and every time the video cuts out Eva has managed to turn it off, which she thought was hysterical. So enjoy a much needed dose of toddler laughter with me.
Yesterday Eva spent a good amount of time playing with the lens cap. She knows perfectly well where the lens cap goes, but for some reason she really wanted it to fit in Llama Llama’s red pajamas. You will also see a brief appearance by Zombie Baby during the last few seconds.
Finally, there is a bonus video, but I only recommend it if you can’t get enough Eva videos (you know who you are!) or like to watch oddball toddler development in action.
I have learned that when kids are cooped up inside for a week, they undergo major personality developments.
Last January following our month of extreme snow, Eva discovered her extroverted tendencies and started garnering the attention of every stranger from her stroller.
This January we’ve been trapped indoors for a number of reasons – one cold after another, contractors working on our house, and an ice storm. The moment we stopped coughing and the ice and snow melted, my formerly cautious child discovered the joys of escaping from me and running down the sidewalk.
One day I went along with her antics, and we now go for planned walks around our neighborhood. First we walk around the block, and then run up and down the street haphazardly.
Each walk has a theme. First we discovered street art – the tiny pictures of fish on the “no dumping” signs on our storm drains.
Next we explored walkways to houses. Eva would notice particular houses she just had to go inside, and I would explain we did not know the occupants, and we had to stay on the sidewalk.
Another day our theme was sticks. If you ever see a pile of carefully arranged sticks on a manhole, it’s possible Eva was there, organizing nature.
Last week after a particularly long walk, Eva discovered she likes to sit on the bottom of front steps. It turned out she was tired and on the verge of a tantrum, so later that day I mapped our route to see how far we had gone. Imagine my surprise to see my 20-month-old had walked a half mile. I had no idea they could go that far on such short legs!
I love these walks as much as Eva, but for a different reason – I love the behaviors that follow: (1) non-picky eating by a starving toddler, (2) maximum-length napping, and (3) subdued evenings with a tired kid who just wants to cuddle and read.
A few weeks ago Matt, Eva and I attended Matt’s company holiday party. It was an amazing event – on-site babysitting, catered with a full bar, stockings and wrapped gifts for the kids, and a real live Santa.
Now this wasn’t just any Santa – he was an enthusiastic Santa with loud, aggressive bells who took his job seriously. The kids loved him – except Eva. Click on the picture at left to see the full terror after her first Santa-sighting.
Below you’ll see the fun continued when she was encouraged to interact with the loud bearded man. Not that I was thrilled to be so close to a stranger, but I like to think I hide it well.
While Eva recovered from her initial trauma, she never did return to the babysitters (who were lovely). Instead, I saw a lot of the view at left.
Santa certainly left an impression – I don’t think we’ll bother him again for a year or two.
In the meantime, thank goodness we have cute Couch boys in Santa hats to make Eva laugh.
