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Moving Time in the Sticks
My brother is moving out of my parent’s place and that means lots and lots of chaos while they pack up their stuff and attempt to transport it all to their new place. Of course I never want to miss out on any family drama so I decided to head out to the sticks to help with the “process”. Or at least help my mom cope with the empty nest syndrome, even though this will be my brother’s third or fourth time moving out.
My mom and I have been packing boxes (while my brother is at work and my sister-in-law and nieces are out of town) and we’ve been sneezing up a storm with all the dust. Let me just say this: my nieces don’t need any more toys ever. I think we must have packed a hundred boxes of toys. So many! If you want to buy them a birthday present in the future, buy them a ticket to legoland or something. Something that doesn’t need to have a place. I don’t know what their new house looks like but I’m guessing there isn’t that much more room than there was here at my mom’s.
I could be wrong. I am the fanatical neat-nick of the family. And I might get in trouble depriving my nieces of presents. I hate to do that. It’s just my independent editorial opinion that they don’t need any more toys.
I was talking to my brother’s boss (who came to help—yay boss!) and he said it’s just the times. All kids have this many toys, he said. Hoo Boy! I don’t think I can do that with Baby Bug. I really get stressed out when things don’t have a place to go. Plus, I hate to see people waste money on toys when she’d be just as happy with an old used up cardboard paper towel tube. Though I have to admit I do covet Madeline books and maybe a little miniature broom so she can sweep the patio for me. I’m such a hypocrite.
Baby Bug has been having a blast here, as usual. She loves the sticks. “Side! Side! Side!” she yells as soon as we pull up into the driveway. She loves the dogs and the dirt and the miles and miles of weeds to go running around in. It’s not really miles and miles, only a half acre, but to a city kid like Baby Bug it’s miles and miles. I filmed a little movie of me driving her around in my nieces play car. I’ll try to put it up tomorrow if I have time. I would put it up now but Baby Bug is sleeping in the same room I am typing this in and I know I would wake her up if I tried to work on a movie right now. You know me. I can’t just upload a movie as is. I need to edit it and add music and stuff… definitely not something I should be doing at 11:19 pm when my eyeballs are burning and I really should be sleeping.
So I’ll leave you with this silly face and check back in tomorrow!
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my only sunshine
I was singing “You are my sunshine..my only sunshine…lah la la lah la….” (like I do all the live long day now) to Baby Bug today as I changed her diaper on the scratchy grass at the park, when suddenly it hit me: She is my sunshine. If she wasn’t with me, my skies would be so gray.
Sometimes I forget what life was like like before Baby Bug. What was it like not to be toting around a seventeen pound companion wherever I go? She goes everywhere with me. The laundromat, the grocery store, the gas station, the many many many public restrooms I must visit because I have a bladder the size of a pea.
So many times I have to tell her, “No, icky! Don’t touch that!” I don’t even know what it’s like to go to the bathroom by myself any more. Or get into the car without thinking about the windows being down so she doesn’t die of heat exhaustion before I can get her car seat buckled. I heft her in and out of her car seat about a thousand times a day. It’s like second nature. Like wearing a purse.
When I was a kid I used to always daydream about having a little pet mouse that could sit on my shoulder and talk to me all day long (and maybe whisper the answers to timed math quiz questions). Now, I have that constant companion. I might not understand what she is saying all the time but she definitely talks to me all day. I can’t wait until she’s old enough to do math for me.
When I sat there on the grass at the park, staring down at this little wiggly body who can’t wait to flip over and run away diaper- less to the sand box, I was suddenly hit with how very very sad I am going to be when she grows up and leaves me someday. Now it’s all making sense why some mothers refuse to let go of their children even when it is the best thing they can do for them.
Sure I’ll always have Toby and my hobbies and my cats and whoever else comes into my life between now and then… but she will always be my sunshine. My only sunshine.
p.s. I am aware that having this sort of epiphamy while changing a poopy diaper doesn’t really make for the most poetic visual but that’s what really happened. I’ve never been very good at writing fiction.
