August 13, 2007 | Offspring: ecstasy and agony, The Year of Living Changerously

For the first time in about seven weeks, I am sitting at my desk in broad daylight with nothing but the droning of the fan behind me as background noise. I have a million things to do, of course, but I have a solid six hours before I have to talk to anyone else, get anyone something to eat, settle a squabble, or decide whether or not we can go swimming now.

First day of school, baby. How do I love the public school system? Let me count the ways. No; scratch that. That would take up precious minutes that I could spend eating cookies because there’s no one here to see me.

Make no mistake—I’m thrilled they’re back (as early as it is) and my expectation is that this will be a great year, but I worry for them, too. I worry for both of them in different ways and for different reasons, but they’re my babies and that’s my job. (more…)

August 11, 2007 | Ottomatic For the People, The Year of Living Changerously

(Which is why this is okay, because I skipped last month.)

Dear Otto,

Happy three months of being hitched! That’s a full quarter of a year, and we still like each other. I think by this point in my last marriage we already had our doubts, so WAY TO GO, US!

This month has been the first time we’ve lived together the entire time, WITH the kids here, and everyone is still alive and minimally scarred. That’s not to say that I am not going to shove all three of you out the door on Monday morning when school starts (hooray), but even at the end of a trying day seeing your face does not make me snap “What are YOU looking at??” so I think we’re doing great. (more…)

August 7, 2007 | Ottomatic For the People, The Year of Living Changerously

(It’s not what you think.)

After four and a half years of living on my own, I have been completely undone by one month of sharing a house with another adult. That Otto is such a JERK, getting me all used to having him around.

That insensitive jerk lulled me into a false sense of security and then just as the temperature spiked, he went and left me. He left me here with the over-100-degrees temps and a couple of cranky kids and suddenly I was all, “I have to take the garbage out!” and “I have to pay attention to my children!” and “Damn there are a lot of dead bugs in this pool!” (more…)

July 31, 2007 | The Year of Living Changerously, Woohoo!

Today the kids went to an all-day program judiciously selected by us because it only cost $10 for the entire day. But, you know, it was church-affiliated and that means it has to be good. I mean, it was really cheap, but it was approved by Jesus himself. Especially the pottery part. Monkey presented me with something that may be either a clay donut or a pencil holder, and Chickadee showed off a gigantic blue whale with a comically tiny Mr.-Bill-like Jonah who fits in said whale’s blowhole. (Don’t ask me, I DON’T KNOW.)

While they were gone, I taped myself to my desk chair and completed about a dozen assignments so that we can leave tomorrow (to go here) on a mini camping trip without me spending the entire time trying to find some WiFi. And Otto went and ran some errands and sold his house. (more…)

July 29, 2007 | It's not a regret, it's an "experience", The Year of Living Changerously

The process of adjusting to our new home and different life is very much like playing my least-favorite board game, Candyland. Ten steps forward, two steps back. Sixteen steps forward and OH NO! Back to the beginning, sorry!

Seven steps forward, four steps back. Eight steps forward, back to the—screw this. This is the point in Candyland where either a child completely melts down and I have an excuse to pack the game up, or I “accidentally” bump the board. With my foot. Hard.

Unfortunately, it’s rather less practical to pack up the game when this pattern is playing out in real life. (more…)

July 8, 2007 | The Year of Living Changerously

With each passing day I’m learning more about our new home, and further despairing of ever finishing unpacking. At a certain point here I’m just going to start throwing little knitted doilies over everything and pretending that it’s part of the decor.

Fiddle-dee-dee! Set your drink over there on that stack of, um, art!

I did spend a couple of hours upstairs in the kids’ rooms unpacking the countless boxes of their stuff, today, and they expressed their thanks by rejoicing over the contents and then making a gigantic mess of all their refound stuff and pelting each other with toys until I told them to stop it before I put the two of them into a couple of boxes. (more…)

July 3, 2007 | Offspring: ecstasy and agony, The Year of Living Changerously

To my surprise and delight, both children slept through their first night here in the new house without a peep or a problem. We were all awakened this morning by the contractors (which may explain why the neighbors haven’t come over to greet us, because before we moved in there probably wasn’t any pounding happening at 6:30 in the morning on this block) and Monkey came downstairs and hopped into bed with me and Otto.

“Hello!” he greeted us. “I had a good sleep!” As if he’d slept here a million times and hopped up to start the day with us the same way for the last year or seven.

“Good morning my sweet boy,” I answered. We snuggled and I kissed his head and asked him what we should do now.

“Let’s have a wild party!” he answered without hesitation. To demonstrate exactly how wild it would be, he burrowed under the covers and shook his butt in the air. That may be when Otto decided to get up and take a shower. (more…)

July 2, 2007 | The Year of Living Changerously, What do I do all day?

Hey, we’re all moved in now. I know this because the boxes are piled up to the ceiling, I have vowed never to speak to anyone at the moving company ever again, the children have arrived and bounced off the walls and declared their closets secret clubhouses (hey, did you know that in Georgia most people do not have basements? and so there are many many closets, as a pitiful excuse for storage, instead?), and there is no paint or anything having to do with paint sitting around on my floor anymore.

So, yeah, it’s simply lovely, and if you don’t mind getting lost in the Magical Box Labryinth or being woken up at dawn by the contractors, you should totally come on over. (more…)

June 30, 2007 | The Year of Living Changerously, What do I do all day?

… because I can no longer lift my arms.

Maybe next week.

So. Um. We bought this house, and then we pretty much went over there and painted for the next forty eight hours straight. Otto managed to lure various friends of his over to assist, which was nice, but it was still a whoooooole lotta painting. AND we’re not done yet! Because the copper wall takes TWO coats of base color and TWO coats of metallic overlay, which means we have one more metallic layer to go tomorrow, after which I suspect the living room will be six inches narrower than it was before we started, because HOLY HELL four coats of paint seems like a lot. Also, cathedral ceilings are highly overrated. (more…)

June 28, 2007 | Ottomatic For the People, The Year of Living Changerously, Woohoo!

As of around 5:00 this afternoon, Otto and I are now the proud owners of three houses. We think it’s good to have a couple of spares around, just in case, you know.

He did carry me over the threshold, though he didn’t throw me in the pool… probably because the pool was still looking a little scary. (The pool people are coming tomorrow to finish readying it, which I hope means they will be vacuuming up the fuzzy stuff floating all over the bottom, because EWW.)

I didn’t accidentally sign my old name even once on the mortgage paperwork! A good way to learn your new name is to sign it eleventy billion times on pieces of paper that say things like “I agree to repay the bank a million trillion dollars in interest or I authorize them to pull off my fingernails and feed them to me while Bette Midler sings.” (more…)