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.
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