These are the days that, in the future, I will look back on as golden. I’m pretty sure I’ll forget the petty annoyances and frustrations and remember the golden times. Memory is a wonderful thing that way.
Saturday was Stoneham Town Day! This is definitely the sort of even that is perfect for a new family with a young child moving to town. Most of the organizations in town had booths there — from the cub scout troup to the “Friends of the Fells” to the candidates vying for election in the primary tomorrow. There was a Kiddy Korner with a big bouncy house, some very tame carnival rides (appropriate for 2 year olds). There was cotton candy and slushies and local talent performing near the gazebo. There were many free give aways and raffles. It was both fun and useful to me. Notably, I got to corner and spend significant time talking to the other candidate running in the Democratic primary, whom I decided I preferred. (Note to voters: if you do not want the government run by the same old good old boys, quit electing people who claim they can get you more pork because they “know people” up on the hill. Kthxbye.) Grey had a fantastic time. He loved the big slide. He loved the bouncy house (he went in three times!) He loved the little airplane ride. He loved the balloons he got. And best of all? It’s 3 blocks to our house so we didn’t need to carry anything and just walked home when he got tired. In fact, people were parking on the street almost right up to our house for the event, so we COULDN’T have driven any closer in if we’d wanted to! I’m really liking our house and really liking Stoneham.
After that, I had a massage. I think I’ve finally found a local massage therapist who works for me — good combination of convenient (once again walking distance!), correctly priced and good at what she does. Mmmmm massage….
Sunday was church. I’m realizing that church is much easier for me to go to in some ways now. With Grey being Full! Of! Energy! we’re often looking for things to do with him during the day. It’s hard to stay home with him all day long. (This will not improve come winter… ugh.) Anyway, in addition to being a wonderful place for us, church is a good activity for him too. This Sunday he went out to Sunday School no problemo — running ahead and leading the pack, actually. I’m seeing all my dire predictions of the last decade come true. Anytime there was some kid cutely speaking out of turn during word for children, or making funny faces, or volunteering irrelevant information I knew in my heart of hearts that eventually it would be MY child doing that. And oh! It begins!
Sunday afternoon was dedicated to detrashing the cars. Seriously, people. When you have a toddler and an hour daily commute, it is very very hard to keep your car in any shape that reasonable adults would consider acceptable. But I removed the trash, vaccuumed the car, organized the toy (his first action of the morning involved dumping all the toys OUT of the nice boxes I had them in — les sigh), and installed the new big boy car seats — the booster+ seats. I also put him to the side, since pretty soon we’ll need to put the infant car seat on the other side. And I dusted the interior of the car and cleaned the inside of the windshield. For the record? This is hard to do 8 months pregnant.
We also did a gigantic avalanche worth of clothes. There was the regular tsnunami of dirty laundry, and in addition a good 3 – 4 loads of baby clothes, blankets, diapers, bibs and toys that needed to be washed. Most of them got washed, dried, folded, carted upstairs and put away in the beautiful baby’s room (which I think is almost ready for it’s formal unveiling pictures!)
And there were some truly wonderful moments. Grey has reached that stage where he can break my heart unexpectedly with an overabundance of love. He did it twice yesterday. We were driving to church and listening to some Gospel bluegrass (seriously, if it weren’t for my positions on, you know, the issues, I could totally pass as Christian Conservative). Grey asked if these were Jesus songs (a taxonomic distinction that interests him greatly) and I said they were. Then he said, “Jesus songs jump in my heart.” There are like 4000 ways you could interpret that, but he said it so earnestly and happily that, I don’t know, it just made me rejoice. (Of course, I teared up like three times on my way to church so obviously some pregnancy hormones were involved.) Then at night, as we were watching our family “Muppet Show” and eating cookies that Grey and daddy made together, Grey turned to me and told me, “Mommy, I love you very very much.” No preamble. Not in response to anything. He knows more or less what it means — at least as much as any of us.
My son is full of joy and he loves me. My husband is full of cookies and he loves me. What more could I possibly ask?
My Truant Pen 