The whole story

Something about being away from home for a day or two brings me here to the blog. My last blog was written on my final trip to St Louis to finish up the project I have been doing there for almost a year. Tonight I am in Orlando - not too far from home - at a conference where my company wanted to have a presence. I don't know if it is that being away gives me perspective or if it just provides me with that extra time and space needed to sit down and write for a few minutes. Likely both.

These past few months have been hard (with a lot of wonderful good moments sprinkled in) and while I really wanted to document the experience in the moment I found it too hard, both emotionally and logistically. I wanted to write real-time to capture my transition from being a snooty, sophisticated, layer-toting San Franciscan to being a suburban Florida mom who wears the same three maternity dresses from Target in rotation. It's a lot of ground to cover and I have done it in just over two months. I will spare you the photos.

On Friday night we slept at our new house for the first time. I made the call to just go live there already, since we have owned it since Sept 21 and yet continued to pay rent to live in a tiny dump. But it was clear very quickly that moving in before the hardwood floors upstairs were done (oh the dust!) and while the roof is still being replaced (several weeks behind schedule) was unwise, to say the least. But we stuck it out: we threw a mattress on the floor of the family room and set up Emerson's crib in the dining room and tried not to breathe in too much dust or touch anything.

I love our house. It is so ridiculously large that the same furniture that made our 3 bedroom San Francisco apartment feel cramped makes our Tampa house appear abandoned. It is so nice that Eric and I will occasionally whisper to each other "Whose house is this?" and then we genuinely surprised that the answer is "ours."

For me, starting to sleep in our house is really the beginning of our lives in Tampa. We have already met a lot of neighbors and are cautiously optimistic that we are on a really good  block: tons of families with small children, a good mix of different kinds of people with different jobs. Some neighbors already brought us cookies.

The thing that got me about the house from the beginning is the pond out back. It is a very pretty retention pond that is also important wildlife habitat and sometimes in the dark pre-dawn when Emerson and I are out in the screened-in porch area we can hear things splashing in it. Apparently it only has baby gators - once they get to 6 feet the county removes them.

Sleeping in my own bed has also been a major life quality improvement. I had thought that this pregnancy was just harder on my low back than the first one but after a couple nights in my own amazing bed my back issues are gone and I wake up feeling rested instead of like I spent the night getting beat up. It was just two and a half months of terrible beds that got my low back so pissed off.

Having my mother, known these days as Gama, with us for a few months was also a great gift. I don't know how we will thank her for everything she has done to help us out. I have particularly appreciated her help as it enabled me to hold onto my last shreds of sanity during these few months of chaotic transition. And it has been great for Emerson to hang out with her and get to know her a bit better.

One of the added bonuses of having Gama around is that Eric and I got to go out more than normal. We saw a lot of movies. We saw Cowboys & Aliens and Super 8 at the super cheap ($3!) movie theater we could walk to from the condo. It is the kind of place where it's the same woman who is popping the popcorn, selling tickets, checking your purse to make sure you aren't smuggling in outside candy, and then running the projector. They don't even have the lights on a dimmer: it's just the flip of a switch. We had to make sure to leave before they turned the lights back on at the end.

Most recently we saw Contagion because Eric felt a professional responsibility to be able to comment on the accuracy of the science in the movie and also because I think he particularly likes movies where virologists are the heroes. When I asked him halfway through if he thought this sort of thing might ever actually happen he said "Oh it's inevitable - and we (society) are completely unprepared to deal with it." I guess the good news is either you die or you don't and there probably isn't much you can do about it. I am not going to start worrying about it.

After Friday this week I am done done done with work for a little while. I am looking forward to spending all my time with Emerson, to feeling less stretched and maybe even relaxed and to eventually getting unpacked in our new place. And if I am lucky, to many naps in my own bed.