This was never how we vacationed before kids and honestly, neither of us ever envisioned that we would become “all inclusive” kinds of travelers. This is especially true for my husband who isn’t nearly the beach fanatic that I am, so trips focused almost exclusively on beaches and pools were never what he pictured. But the truth is, after we took our first resort vacation to Mexico in 2016, (https://www.aptubinisphotography.com/mexico/)  we had a whole new appreciation for the ease of a trip where your only decisions are things like beach or pool? Margarita or pina colada? As people always say, there is really no such thing as a “vacation” with kids. You take trips with kids but they require feeding and some entertaining and just a general level of management that cuts into one’s ability to ever 100% kick back in the same way that you do before kids. Still, these recent trips that we’ve taken have come pretty darned close to feeling like a REAL vacation, even with two relatively young kids in tow. With no responsibilities whatsoever and picture perfect weather for a week, we all kicked back and enjoyed lots of swimming, feasting on lots of Dominican food and just being together with no one distracted by work, homework or any other obligations. Next year, we’ve got plans for some new destinations and a slightly more active trip but for 2019, this was just right.

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Before he left for the showing, we talked on the phone and he asked me if I would be comfortable with him making an offer on the house if he saw it and felt that it was what we were looking for.  Though common sense told me that this was probably not the recommended way to buy your home, I said yes. I said yes because after 15 years together  and having  been to countless open houses together, I felt as sure as I could possibly feel that he knew what I was looking for. I said yes because Mike has a a remarkably solid track record of listening to his instincts and being right. He know which people are good and he knows which decisions will work out for the best while I agonize and torture myself for hours on end, weighing pros and cons and assessing which choice will lead to more or less guilt or disappointment. I’ve learned along the way that when I am unsure, I can keep flailing around like a spinning top or I can just glance his way and follow his lead. More often than not, it steers us in the right direction. After 15 years, he is my compass in many of the moments that feel too big to navigate alone.

To make a long story short, we did in fact buy our new house without me ever walking through the door. Our offer was accepted the night that Mike saw it and I went to see it the next day and breathed a sigh of relief that in fact, he does know me well. That’s not to say that I didn’t question things along the way to this house, or that I didn’t have some (okay, many) weepy moments about leaving our neighborhood and the general area of Cambridge and East Watertown where we made a life for the better part of the last 12 years. We moved into our Watertown condo when Zoe was 6 weeks old and brought Lilly there at 3 days old.  Change is hard and I knew I was saying goodbye to more than just our old home. It was goodbye to their baby years, goodbye to a chapter in our life when we walked to parks every day of the week and celebrated everything at the Town Diner.  Goodbye and farewell to our first five clumsy and messy and utterly amazing years of parenthood.

On moving day, Mike headed out after the movers to drive to the new house before the girls and I did. I might have been dragging my feet a bit and stalling the goodbye since I don’t do too well in that department. So we said goodbyes in the ways that we could. They jumped on the bed. I made them sit on the inside steps and then the front porch just one more time for just one more picture. We made one last stop at  Celebrity ice cream and our favorite park which of course are both still there but “there” is no longer a 5 minute walk from our door.

Now we are here in Melrose and it’s been a little over a month.  Even though the boxes are still far from fully unpacked and the pictures aren’t on the wall yet, this is undoubtedly home. Of course, it’s really nice that there’s a yard and a driveway and super nice neighbors and for some strange reason, having an upstairs and a downstairs makes me feel like a real grown up after years of apartment and condo living. Zoe started Kindergarten a few weeks ago in a school around the corner and every morning when I walk her there, I think about how lucky we are that this is our life now and that we found such a great place to be for this next chapter.

Then I think about how Mike said to me time and time again in the god-awful house hunting process, “It doesn’t really matter what town we end up in or how big the house is. We’ll be happy anywhere. Wherever we go, it will be great.”  He was right.  For so many reasons, I may still get teary when I drive through our old neighborhood but we are where we are supposed to be and it’s perfect, because we are home.

Where we love is home – home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      -Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

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You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes
You can steer yourself
any direction you choose.
You’re on your own.  And you know what you know.
And YOU are the guy who’ll decide where to go.

You’ll look up and down streets.  Look ’em over with care.
About some you will say, “I don’t choose to go there.”
With your head full of brains and your shoes full of feet,
you’re too smart to go down any not-so-good street.

–Dr. Seuss, “Oh the Places You’ll Go!”

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If I can’t say  that 5 was a surprise, I can admit that I’m not quite ready for it.  If the truth be told, some days I wish for Zoe to be “almost 5” forever. Because now, undeniably, there is no more baby, no more toddler, no more preschooler even but instead a bona fide kid.   The baby rolls are gone for the most part and she’s coltish now as if she’s trying to figure out movement all over again with these increasingly long limbs. She has more to say than ever before but still has her own delightful mispronunciations  of an array of words.  She still rubs her eyes like she did at 6 weeks old when she is tired and likes to wrap herself tightly in blankets the way we once swaddled her tight like a burrito.  Sometimes, when I wrap my arms around her in bed and close my eyes, I swear she smells just like a new baby all over again.

On Zoe’s birthday this year, we went to the Town Diner at her request for one more family breakfast as Watertown residents. Dressed in her new Elsa dress, she gobbled up her French toast and bacon and milk and remarked that she might have grown a tiny bit while she was sleeping and magically turning 5. At her request, we headed to the Children’s museum where she once crawled around and where she was now one of the big kids, climbing to the very top of the structure there that once made her eyes open wide in fear.

And then that night, we had dinner at Full Moon, a little gem of a place in Cambridge. We first ventured to Full Moon when Zoe was maybe 2 weeks old, having heard about how much they catered to families. We’d heard that they understood parents of little ones who just wanted great food (and let’s be honest, their wine and beer lists don’t hurt) without getting the stink eye from staff or other patrons when their babies and kids act like, well…babies and kids.  I remember how 5 years ago, we sat down at a table for two with Zoe sleeping in her car seat on the floor and how we plowed through a plate of nachos and 2 beers, as if Zoe were an explosive who might detonate if we didn’t hurry. I remember how we had ambitiously planned to have dinner too but that just as we finished our nachos and beer,  we looked down and suddenly, she was wide eyed and staring at us. She didn’t cry–in fact, she rarely pitched a fit publicly as a newborn–but she squirmed and grunted and squawked in her little seat, just enough to worry us. As rookie parents, she made us nervous enough to get the check and head for the door, grateful for our successful outing, albeit a brief one.

It’s hard to believe that five years ago, we sat there, trying to figure this small creature out but it’s not hard like when people say, “Oh, how can that have been 5 years ago–that feels like yesterday!” It’s hard because my heart can’t remember a time when she wasn’t ours and with us and intertwined into nearly every thought or feeling that I have and every real decision I make now.   Just five years, how can that be?  She’s been here all along, hasn’t she?

Five snuck up on me, even though I knew it was coming, even though the signs were all there and even though the kinds of questions she now asks were all pointing to the inevitable. Maybe I just wasn’t ready to close the chapter on my firstborn’s babyhood, or maybe there’s never really a way to be be truly ready for that.  I can’t slow this train down but I know now how fast it moves. So I find myself lingering with her at bedtime some nights or holding onto her hand long after we have safely crossed the street.  I tell her that she’s my big girl and in the same breath, I tell her that she’s my baby.  Somehow, in a way that I know she understands as well as I do, both are entirely true.

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Flirt

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If you should make it through the first year of parenthood phase relatively unscathed, the last thing you want to hear is that your beloved is going to turn into a small monster upon his or her 2nd birthday but in all likelihood, someone will still think it’s good idea to warn you about the “terrible twos”, just in case you hadn’t heard.

Lilly turned two just about three months ago and like every milestone with a second child, it was different. Sure, there were tears (mine) about what feels like end of babyhood in many ways and of course, there was cake. But when it came to the requisite commentary on the arrival of age two that well meaning strangers offer in line at Target or at the park, this time I just smiled because we’ve been through this before and my take on two is a little bit different.  The truth is, I loved two with Zoe and I kind of love it even more now.

Two is honest and raw and innocent. Two is intense and knows that all feelings are big feelings.  Two thinks change is exciting but also really hard (isn’t it?) and that change is especially annoying when it means you have to stop doing something that’s really fun. Two knows what she wants and what she likes–that is, until she doesn’t want or like that anymore. Two tries a new food and either pounds the table demanding more or spits it right out at you but you won’t have to wonder whether she liked it.  There is no filter, there is no pretense, because two is honest and raw and innocent.

Two means starting to notice that you have feelings too. Two sees that you look tired or maybe sad and offers a sticky hug or their dingy stuffed animal to hold.  There is no purer gift than an offering from a two year old.  Two gets mad at you–no, two gets infuriated with you for doubting her ability to independently put on her shoes, buckle a seatbelt, read a book by herself, bake a pie, you get the idea.  Two pushes you away one minute and a half second later clings to you like a spider monkey. Two is all about joy and pride at what she can accomplish all by herself and utter despair at the things that are just so hard.

Two stops to smell the roses, or touch the mailbox, pick up an ant or stomp in puddles.  Two isn’t in any great hurry and knows that when something is beautiful, it’s worth stopping to look, to touch, to smell.  Funny shaped clouds, a bird on the telephone wire, a cross eyed dog–two finds more beauty in each day than most of us notice in a year. Two takes what feels like hours to walk places, to pick the berries, to pull her own shirt over her head.

Two takes forever to climb the stairs up into our second floor condo every single day and in doing so, reminds me every single day that we really don’t need to hurry,  that this time is passing too quickly as it is. Sometimes I get to hold her sweaty little hand as we climb the stairs. Other times, I am denied but we still walk side by side and every day, I am so very grateful to be slowed down by two.

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