Silent Move

Just a small observation: Bike-riding with Luke has always seemed like more of an obligation ("Maybe we could go and ride your bike for a little while?") than something he begs to do. But Zach, who now has his little training-wheel bike all put together, wants to ride his bike every spare moment. And we're not just talking about gingerly riding in circles. He wants to ride at top speed; he wants to cover territory. So he and I have gone all over the neighborhood and all around the school, getting as much mileage in as he can. Sometimes he takes a turn too fast and topples over onto the ground - no matter, because he dusts himself off and scrambles right back on. Our elementary school is built on a hill, with one main incline that connects through four rows of classroom buildings - and Zach insists on riding all the way up the entire hill without any assistance from me. Again, we're talking about one of those little kiddie bikes with training wheels - no gears or anything. You can see him gritting his teeth and grimacing to get the pedals moving, but he refuses to let you so much as touch him to give him a boost.

Luke has been into karate - I mean really, really into it - for a few months now and he is truly starting to look like an expert. Today in the Whole Foods parking lot he was carefully practicing his little routine (kata) that he needs to earn his first stripe. He is determined to earn a black belt before he turns 8, or possibly by the time he is 15. Part of the appeal of the man-cave is that it will house some karate mats and a mirror for home practice (and maybe a slumber party or two). We are happy for this new diversion, and we're pleased to finally direct some money somewhere other than the Lego Corporation.

Dave has been through a hard couple of weeks, so we're all going to be very nice to Dave. And I love him. Except I have to say just one thing: Of all of the quadrillion items in our entire house, for some reason he packed the CD player and all of our music first. So I have been at home most of the week packing in silence. Or singing the alphabet song, or something equally annoying, to myself.

Pray that this weekend goes quickly.

Stacked

All packed and ready to go!

Kidding, of course. We are nowhere close. Last time we moved we had one less person and 250,000 fewer Legos. If I could just pack us all up and magically transport us into next week I'd be happier. But still, despite my occasional lapse into despair and self-pity. the boys have maintained a good attitude about the whole process. This picture personifies their viewpoints pretty well: Zach: "Woo-hoo! This is the best thing EVER!" Luke: "Yeah, this might be fun but I'm going to wait to see how it all shakes out."

Oh, and here's the front of the house. It's on a hill so it's hard to get a good angle where you can see what the second floor looks like, but this will have to do for now. There's a long driveway along the side of the house leading to the garage Man Cave in back.

C'mon over before we get it all messy!

Sheltered

And...we have a house. It's a little blue Cape-style house, different from all other houses we've lived in because it does not have a garage front (this is a good thing). The garage is tucked away in the backyard, where it will afford ample space for a karate/gymnastics/recreation room, a.k.a. a Man Cave. The boys will share a small bedroom on the first floor, which is adjacent to a much larger family room, where we will have the TV and all of their toys. They get their own big bathroom too. The kitchen is nice - not enormous - but bigger than what we have now, which is almost impossibly small. Dave and I will be on the second floor in a nice big master suite with a balcony; and Dave will move his office to the second floor, where there is a huge sunny office space with a second enormous balcony (I suspect Dave will make out better than any of us on this deal). It's clean and pretty, and we've resolved that it will be a shoe-free house. Best of all, it is within Luke's school district so we will not have to change schools.

For all of these reasons I thought that telling Luke would be somewhat straightforward and pleasant, as long as we kept a focus on making this a positive new adventure. MAN was I wrong. It is far too painful to recount, but suffice to say that Luke was absolutely devastated. I hadn't quite prepared myself for how bad it would be - except in retrospect, I should have realized that he would be experiencing the same feelings that I did when I first found out. I thought that I had already experienced the low point of this whole process, but we truly hit a new low yesterday while talking to Luke.

The strange thing is, he seems to have gone through all five stages of grief with lightning speed. He did denial, anger, bargaining (told me he would need a new Lego set to help him cope), depression, and he seems to have arrived at acceptance already. He is still mad that we won't be next door to school, and that we won't have a pool, but he seems to be focusing on the good stuff (he'll be a block away from one of his best karate buddies, his bedroom closet has a super-secret hiding space). We're still going to keep a close eye on him. Oh, and it's going to cost me a Lego set.

Zach, on the other hand, could not have been more blase about the whole thing. I sat him down and explained that we were moving all of our stuff to another house and we were going to live in that other house from now on. He kind of raised an eyebrow and said, "Today?" "No, in a few days," I told him. "OK!" he said, and that was it. I assume that he probably doesn't understand all of the implications and the magnitude of it, but later we went to visit the house and he wanted to bring all of our stuff over. He's ready to go.

One small concern that Luke had about the new house was that the backyard might not be big enough for Lukeball. Fans of Calvin and Hobbes will probably remember Calvinball, an insanely complex game that only made sense to Calvin. Luke has taken it upon himself to invent his own game, which is similarly complex but at the same time highly entertaining. The backyard is divided into several areas, which he helpfully labeled with signs pointing out the Drop Area, the Invisibility Zone, the Vortex Center, the Jump Line, and a few other points that I can't even recall. It involves a lot of running around, tagging, spinning, and awarding of points in increments of 1,000. Zach likes it because he enjoys just hanging out in the Vortex Center and spinning. I like it because it's one of the wordiest ball games I've ever played - you can't get through a round without lots of discussions and negotiations.

As far as I can tell, the backyard in the new place is reasonably big for Lukeball, and there's also a nice front yard that might make for a little game space as well. But as I told Luke, the best part of Lukeball is that you can change the rules as need be. At our old house we had to work our way around a pool cover. Now we have a wide-open yard. Plus we can add an extra degree of difficulty when someone decides to hide out in the Man Cave.

Going through the motions

I haven't written in a while because I am absolutely just Not Feeling It. Most mornings in the last three weeks I've had to scrape myself up off the floor and zombie through the must-do list, so Beachbucket-ing pretty much falls by the wayside. We do not have a housing solution yet, and we aren't going to tell the boys anything until we do, so I am just going to leave the subject there without further comment.

In the meantime, people have actually had to live their lives, so let's talk about that. Dave has added "soccer player" to his multi-faceted list of talents after playing in an all-dad soccer tournament fundraiser last week. Notice how in the picture he looks like the kid brother compared to all of these enormous guys on his team. They defied all odds to make it into the final game, and then lost in overtime - but they put up a valiant effort.

Dads' soccer is funny because when someone gets hit or falls down there's a collective groan from the audience, especially from the wives who know they are going to have to hear about that particular hurt for the next week or two. But despite that (because of it?) the whole thing was enormously entertaining.

Last weekend we had the annual family campout, for which Dave's and my enthusiasm was about a 1 out of 100 (with 100 being the enthusiasm level of our friends, who plastered us for days with emails about what kinds of camping equipment, foods, and diversions they were bringing to the event). We first decided not to stay over; then Luke was completely distraught, then I volunteered to stay over with Luke, and then Dave finally decided he would do the camping. After an 11pm bedtime, and waking up to the rainstorm at 5am, it wasn't his best sleep ever.

But when the sun came out at around 8am on Sunday morning, everyone was raring to go for the fishing derby. Zach was the picture of determined cuteness while holding his fishing pole, and since the photographers were all taking pictures of him from every which angle, I expect to see him on the cover of one of our city parks and recreation brochures any day now. Luke staked out his own territory with a single-minded focus to catch something besides a sneaker.

As it turned out, Zach won the top prize in his age group (a new kids' fishing pole!) for catching two turtles. Luke got an award for the most unusual catch - an orange - which netted him a new bait and tackle set. And then after all of the camping and fishing equipment was finally wrapped up, we packed everyone in the car and went off to look at another house. If we don't find one, maybe it will be a tent.

Sad Face

Most people buy a house and live in it. Then there are people like us who buy a house, sell a house, buy another house, sell that house, rent a house, plan to buy said house, and then get metaphorically hit by an earthquake/tsunami. That's a flippant way of saying that our house's owners have decided to move back from Japan and we are getting gently booted from our house as of July 1. I'm trying to be all cool like, "Yeah, it's a bummer," but to be honest I'm devastated, confused, and completely stressed out. I don't know where we're going to live, and it doesn't look like we're going to buy again right now so wherever we move is almost certainly going to be temporary, which means yet another move. Hence the sad face.

In better circumstances, this post would have been all about my inspiring weekend with a camp full of food writers. I learned to work with fondant, met some of the movers and shakers in the food blog world, and came home with a goodie bag full of everything from a humongous chef's knife to some white truffle spray. Here you can see my very first attempt at making fondant flowers, and you have to admit that it looks decent for a pure beginner (even with this dark picture from my phone camera). I emailed this to the boys while I was gone and they were THRILLED to hear that I was bringing home all manner of fondant, pastry equipment, and three vials of edible glitter powder.

Sunday afternoon and Monday were very strange because while I was wallowing in self-pity about our living situation, I was also buzzing around thinking about all of my new connections and trying to reach out and build on some of that energy. I had a little email conversation with one of my favorite writers, Cheryl Sternman Rule of 5 Second Rule, and later that night I learned that she had written this incredibly touching post that mentioned me, among other bloggers, in it. Within a few hours of being published it was lighting up the Twittersphere and I was feeling all warm and fuzzy.

Am I trying to keep perspective? Yes. Am I still walking around with a big pit in my stomach? Yes. Do I feel nervous watching the kids and knowing there's a big bomb we're going to have to drop on them any day now? Yes. Did Zach get on the phone while I was gone over the weekend to tell me that he had gotten married? Yes. So as you can see, things are just weird all over.