Inside looking out

I've been remiss in posting lately, I know, but our time has been swallowed up with the kids starting school, me working at the hospital a bit more and this little thing called an addition. If it was just one room in and of itself it might not have such a big impact on our living space, but as it is (and I'm so happy with the way it is) it affects every space on the front of the house as you can see.

We're missing some walls,

we have some new windows,

and some major feats of framing and engineering have been accomplished, a.k.a. sawing the wall in half that holds up the second floor and putting a beam in so we can be wall-less in this section of the house that will become our new bedroom. I don't know how he does it without the house falling down, but by now I just know he can and that's probably all I need to know.

I can now stand in what will soon become my office and dream about how it will be laid out and what kind of storage I'll need. Kevin says he'll make me some built-in cabinets/shelves/whatever, I just need to tell him what I want. He's also informed me that he's going to be tired after this addition's all done, tired, "for like TWO YEARS" he says.

What is real

"I don't understand it, Daddy, I just love Big Bear so much" she said. He's been riding this tricycle all over the yard, fields, and driveway for the past three days or so. If I ever thought she'd come out of the little make-believe imaginary life where she's spent most of her time since toddlerhood, I was sorely wrong. That world for her has only expanded and become more textured, colorful and deep. I wish she'd take me there some time, but I'm afraid it's not a place for grownups.

When I notice I've become too busy for my own good, or that I've lost my imagination, it helps me to stop and pay attention to the little ones around. They have a way of finding the good space, where the innanimate becomes real, where what's fair is obvious and undisputed, and time has no importance or pull in the progress of the day. It's so far removed from my often regimented daily schedule that I wonder if there's a way to make freedom and order coexist or if the magic of childhood is what it is because it eventually is lost.

Kindergarten

When the first day somehow feels like the last day too,

when leaving home and starting a new phase brings trepidation and worry,

it means everything to have a big brother and sister to lead you.

So today I spent some time looking to my own "big sisters" if you will, let's just call them girlfriends, to guide me along a new path that now looks as wide open as when I first stopped working to stay home and raise children.

I tried for a minute or two to shove myself back into the physical therapy box, thinking that I would just let it take over and let all my other pursuits fall to the wayside, that I needed to see myself as just one thing, a producer, a financial contributor, an outside-the-house-working-mom. And while that may be part of what I am or what I do, it is just one part and to let the others fade just doesn't feel right.

I'm left once again feeling my way through the future and looking all around for guidance, finding it in the openness and enthusiasm of my children, the welcoming arms of new friends, the silent urging that comes from within, and a heart that knows much more than I about which way to go.

Moving fast...

Amazing how much can happen in just one day. The framing isn't quite finished, but they have the roofing plywood on and it's papered in. Good thing, wet weather is imminent and hurricane season is upon us.

From the looks of it

The view out our front door will reveal that it'd be an uncomfortable first step if you happened not to notice that there's something missing, the front porch, that is. You may remember it was torn off the house some time ago to make way for an addition. Not a big, sprawling addition, but rather one that adds just enough space to make things a bit more comfortable and livable inside.

To be as brief as possible, I'll just say that this will allow each of our kids to have their own room and share 1 bathroom upstairs, Kevin and I will move downstairs and have our own bathroom, the foyer will be extended to make a place for the piano and there will be a new home office/She Knits headquarters and we'll be down to one living room instead of two.

Dodging the torrential rain from tropical storm Bill, the floor joists went on today and a concrete footing was added around an existing brick pier to support the current house better. It is old and apparently they didn't see the need for minor things like, say, a foundation way back when.

It's here that I must again hand it to the resident jack-of-all-trades, handyman, builder extraordinaire, hardworking machine that is my husband who just today, with his rain soaked hair standing on end (and he has a head full of it) like Billy Idol, had a coming to terms with himself about the benefits or lack thereof of doing all the work himself. It is a dilemma of epic proportions that I'm afraid he must struggle with internally. Will he continue to be a do-it-yourself-er or will one day he become a pay-someone-to-do-it-for-you-er? I think we already have our answer.

But in the meantime while he soul searches, let's just have a little look at his boots, shall we?

Can you see what I see?

It must be the mud in part that's getting to him, or maybe it's the grunt work. Neither of which are much fun.

And in response to the comments and emails from friends wondering how or why I seemed to have had a job and lost it, let me just say that I didn't explain myself very well. The job is still there, it's just that I'm one of the expendible folks who isn't full time and can either be scheduled last minute or cancelled last minute based on the sometimes vast fluctuation in patient census.

So, this time of the year like every year (I should know by now), many doctors schedule vacations not surgeries and there aren't as many folks in the hospital. The end result is I have some unplanned free time on my hands which at first bummed me out and set the chain reaction in motion of slight panic, which led to irritation, which led to imagination, and then mild elation. Let's just say I'm over it. And as I said in my last post, things can, will and do change on on a dime. In a month or two the hospitals will be overflowing and I'll be wishing for these days again. It's that whole grass-is-greener thing.

In limbo

Like the sudden summer rain that seems to arrive from nowhere, things can turn on a dime. I was all geared up to go back to the hospital on Monday when the kids start school, but that turned out to be just as uncertain as the rain and now it looks like I'll be cleaning closets or weeding through the tangled mess that is the girls' bedroom, or spreading mulch, or knitting my hands off, or baking (yes, definitely baking), or getting ready to paint any number of rooms in the house, or laundry, or enough already, you get the picture.

I don't know whether to be excited or disappointed, this whole "figuring my life out" thing has me stumped and feeling like I'm in nowhere-land. But I suppose anticipation is my biggest enemy in the whole grand scheme of things, that, and the nagging feeling that somehow I'm not doing my part if I'm not working non-stop in one capacity or another. Yes, I'd say those two things in and of themselves will give me plenty to work on while I'm not working. Hello sunshine, good-bye umbrella.

Ambivalence

Here I am. Sitting right here in the middle, feeling like I've got one foot stuck back in maternity clothes, diapers, spit up, nap times, preschool and home. Lots of home. Meanwhile my other foot has been standing for some time in the pool that is grade school, homework, tests, grades, sleepovers, sports and independence. Lots of independence.

While I'm eager for the future and all of its prospects for our children, there's a nagging little something that frankly has me sad and I can't quite put it into words. Maybe it's the quiet that will come, maybe it's that I already know how little I'll see them during the day, maybe it's just the change that has me choked up thinking about my littlest heading off to kindergarten.

I try to reassure myself. They all have great teachers this year. They are all more than ready and excited. We are ready to put preschool days behind us. We've seen each year what wonderful things growth and learning are and how they, along with a safe home base help create self-assurance, confidence and exhuberance for life. But. There's still that little something. It gets lodged in my throat every time I think about it.