Closing the childhood home

This afternoon I close on my house. I finished cleaning it on Sunday, and cried for a while because (for the first time in a long time) I remembered good things about it. Waking up way too early on Chrsitmas mornings, my dad's 4oth birthday party, playing Badmitton in the backyard with my sister April, the pet semetary where Nissa, Mittens, Dribble, Delilah, and Sky are buried, asking my sister Stephanie if I could sleep in her room because I was scared to sleep alone, the mornings I woke up to pancakes, mowing the lawn when my estranged Aunt Beth showed up walking across the yard, sitting on the blue shag carpet of my bedroom floor and writing story after story after story. In the sixth grade I walked down the hall when my dad got home from work and I told him I wanted to be a writer when I grew up. He smiled and said he was glad, and to remember that writing was hard work but that I could do it. I remember that he held a briefcase for a job he hated. I remember the exact spot in the hallway where I stood when I told him that, and where he stood when he smiled at me. I could mark x's on the floor.

After I finished cleaning I stood in the hallway, near the front door, and told the place goodbye. My voice echoed even though I said it quietly, because, you know, I was talking to a house and I felt a little silly. As I heard my good bye carry through the house I realized that it was empty for the first time in 26 years. I'd been living in it when I bought it from my parents. Then I stopped feeling silly about talking to an empty house, and went on to assure it that a good family was moving in and that they would take care of it. Then I thanked it for sheltering so many people that I love for such a long time.

And then I went to my new home.

Don't Bother Him With Names

Within his first week of school, Christopher's gotten a girlfriend but he doesn't know her name.
"It's 'A' something, I think" he told me.
"'A something?'" I asked. "You asked her to be your girlfriend today and you don't know what her name is?"
"No, I SAID I think it starts with an 'A,'" he reminded me, frustrated with my inability to recognize his efforts in the relationship.
"Honey, if you're gonna have a girlfriend you need to know her name. It's part of the deal."
"Ok, tomorrow I'll ask her."

I would have told him that it would be best not to say something like, "Hey girl I like, what's your name?" But they're in the 2nd grade, and communication seems to be a lot less complicated on this level.

Take, for example, how he asked her in the first place. A-something had asked him to be her friend on the first day of school, and Christopher said they had fun together. Then they played the next day too. He thought she was cute and wondered if she liked him, so on the third day he asked her about it. This was how it went according to Christopher:
Christopher: Hey, I was wondering if you have a crush on me.
A-something: No.
Christopher: Oh. You wanna be boyfriend and girlfriend anyway?
A-something: Ok.

And viola! Love!

Yesterday I asked him if he'd found out her name yet, and says that she told him but he forgot again. I wonder if she's noticed this. Does he just call her "girlfriend?" Or "you?" I would not put this past my son. If I ever meet her I'll tell her that I understand the frustation. Sometimes he forgets my name is "Mom." I'm just "M-something."

His sisters, whose names I have forgotten because this complex is heriditary, were appauled that he has a girlfriend in the second grade, and they, at 4th and 7th grades, do not have boyfriends.
"It's not fair," C-something said. "How come he has somebody and I don't?"
"Me too!" Something-that-ends-with-an-a agreed. "And it's only the frist week of school."
"Well, he asked her," I told them. "Have you guys asked anybody?"
"No," they sulked, hanging their poor, nameless heads.
"I don't think any of you are old enough to be having girlfriends and boyfriends anyway. There's certainly no rush."
"Christopher's DEFINITELY not old enough!" one of them declared.
"Yeah, but it's not like they're kissing or anything. They're just playing together...Christopher, you're NOT kissing, right?" I asked.
Christopher recoiled. "No!"
"Ok, well, good. See? They're just playing."

So for now, I guess, it's ok if he doesn't know who she is. When he proposes, though, it better not go something like this:

Christopher:"Would you be my wife?"
Girl: "Yes!"
Christopher: "Great! Then we'll be Mr. & Mrs. Christopher!"
Girl: "But my name is-"
Christopher: "The same as mine!"
Girl: "But I've been trying to tell you for years-"
Chrsitopher (whistfully): "The same as mine."

Fast update of worriedness

It looks like a U-Haul sneezed all over my new house. There are boxes, children and animals everywhere. The bus driver at Emma's new school dropped her off far from the house and she got lost. She eventually made it home. I don't have word on the other two yet, on how their first day of school went. Michelle has been wonderful with them today. I want to quit my job and just stay home with all of them. There's too much to be done with their new schools, getting them settled, getting the house together.

It's the next day. All three kids made it home. The animals are all contained within the house. My girlfriend, who is not accustomed to living with children, is fatally exhausted and possibly died in her sleep last night, but I don't know because I had to leave early this morning to get to work. The kids are back at school today. Their new schools. I'm pretty sure that they will all hate me for this change that I have forced upon them and will become serial killers.

That's all for now.