We made it

We made it through the last week. We mostly spent the time moving and cleaning and cleaning some more (our last landlord is very particular. I used 9 magic erasers getting the walls back to white--I also realized that my kids are not as we'll behaved with crayons as I believed). 

Yesterday I told my kids that we'd had enough and even though our current house isn't very homey and there is unpacking and cleaning to do we had to start living again. So yesterday we went to the zoo just to ride te carousel and today we walked to the neighborhood park.

I don't know if I just love spring or if I love our new neighborhood but today is just sort of a perfect day. 

I also love our house. There is something to e said about having a place where my kids can be away from me and still be safe playing. Our old house was a fully open floor plan, which I know is very popular, but I just don't love. I like to be in a place where people (especially small demanding people) can have spaces away from me. 

And we have a back yard and all our door knobs look like this which always reminds me of Alice in Wonderland. What's not to love?

Success!!!

We closed. Hurrah. Now we just have to move and this whole housing nightmare will be behind us.

The next few days will be packing and cleaning and I'm exhausted just thinking about it. 

Even while stressing about housing issues we've been living a pretty charmed life.  The weather is lovely and a friend gave us a water table and Noah no longer has a cast--really what's not to love.

We've also been having some deep conversations lately.  

Claire: mom, I didn't know dragons had wings

Me: yep, they do

Claire: probably so they can catch people to eat them and so they aren't late to dance class.

I told Claire she can go to dance class this fall.  Looks like she's not gonna forget that promise.

Thank You

Our plea to NYC housing kharma seems to have worked. Thank you for your good thoughts and prayers. They worked. We're scheduled to close on our house on Wednesday (which gives us 1 week to move before we get kicked out of our current house).  We aren't going to be able to get work done on the new house before we move in but we won't be homeless. I can totally live with that.  

This is one of our favorite games these days. The kids and Dad run ahead of mom.  Mom is slow and normally panting because, seriously, pregnancy when your body is old and chubby is no joke.  The kids and Dad hide behind trees and fences and bushes and jump out as soon as I get close. This leaves the kids in stiches. 

And yes, Claire is wearing a tiara at the zoo.  She wore it to church today too.  This morning while wrassling myself into compression leggings I was thinking about the plight of parents. I am sure that as Claire gets older she will look at pictures of herself at this age and cringe. She dresses herself and is a careful accessorizer.  Her outfits are hilarious and often involve princess skirts and sparkly shoes she picked out herself which are wearing through at the toes. I hope that I will be able to explain, when she asks me why I let her dress the way she does, that I think {maybe by that time thought} it's more important for her to learn to make decisions for herself than it is to match and wear coordinating outfits. It is more important to me that she imagines and plays and dances. I may think that her old, ratty, corduroy skirt makes her look neglected but she thinks it makes her look like a princess. I hope the teenager Claire will agree with me that was toddler Claire thought was more important than what I thought.

And that cast comes off tomorrow. We are so thrilled because it stinks pretty bad.

This Close to the Edge

Damn.

I am about 1 inch from the edge right now.  We're waiting desperately for the our loan officer to schedule a closing date (which is taking weeks and weeks longer than it should). We are 10 days away from being homeless.

Please send all of your best NYC housing vibes our way.

And if you have extra vibes to send send a couple of vibes so that my pregnancy anxiety can be kept under control while this drama unfolds would be helpful too.

Wild Childhood

A couple of weeks ago I posted a link to this photographer's photos on Facebook (http://www.boredpanda.com/family-children-photography-alain-laboile/).  I have been thinking of them ever since.  I love the childhood that these pictures portray--a childhood that is messy and boisterous where kids are allowed to play in the way that they play.  There are no flash cards in these pictures, no children being taken from one lesson to another (not to say that those things don't happen in their family it's just not what the father has photographed). 

I have been thinking that this is the type of childhood I want my children to have--wild and daring and full of play.  

This does lead to a couple of problems.  How do you keep your children safe while letting them play in their own way (which I will add is sometimes dangerous)?  The other day I lost Noah at the park. I had left him to play by himself at the end of the park that's geared for babies while I played tickle monster for Claire as she came down the big-girl slide.  Noah, of course, did not even know he was lost and had just moved on to a slide in another section of the park but the park is large and there's a lake at the very far end so I was panicked for the 2 minutes he was missing.  

I don't know what the answer is.  I don't know where the happy medium is for wild childhoods and safety from speeding cars and getting lost in the woods and strangers who would harm my kids.  The pull to helicopter-parent my children is strong but I don't think it's good for them.  I think it's good that Claire wants to go quickly up the stairs to story time while Noah and I walk slowly along--that does not mean that the moments she is away from me I'm calm and collected--I panic a little if I don't see her right away when we finally get to the top (probably only 3 minutes behind her).

What do you do? How do you keep your children safe and let them have freedoms too?  Is the sick feeling in your stomach while you wait for them to come back to you just something that is normal and grows stronger as the teen years approach?  

I normally err on the side of too much freedom (as can be attested to by this picture.  Noah in a cast and Claire with a bandaid on her forehead because she got a rug burn serious enough to warrant a bandaid while jumping off her bed into a pile of pillows--and you'll note that in this picture they are eating breakfast and doing an art project so all of the bed jumping took place VERY early this morning).