House of love

Recall, if you will, that whole house thing I was all scared to even talk about a while back. Well, the deal went through, money and keys changed hands, and the house is ours. We moved last Friday, thus saying goodbye to the teeny little rent house that my wife had taken to calling The Shack, and hello to a house that we're falling more and more in love with. I love the house, the yard, the deck, the trees, the street it's on, the talkative old neighbor, the whole package. I even love the idea that I've got a ton of home improvement projects in my future. A lot of things worked in our favor to make this happen, not least among them a very cool landlord who let us out of our lease free and clear, asking only that we list the house for rent on craigslist for him. I ask you, whoever heard of such coolness?

This is eldest son's third move in his short life, and I'm determined to make it his last until he heads off to college. He seems to have picked up on the fact that this place is, in fact, the house where he lives now. We tried to reenforce that feeling after cleaning up the rent house by going around and saying goodbye to all his favorite spots there. Goodbye green room. Goodbye mommy daddy room. Goodbye back yard. It was cute, but I gotta say, it was not a difficult farewell.

We got to meet the woman who was selling the house. She lived here for almost 30 years, almost as long as the house has existed. She raised her kids here, and seemed to get a little bit emotional while we talked about it. She met the boys, and seemed happy to see that there would be children living here.

Earlier this evening, The Ash and I were putting our clothes away, and were raving about how we actually had room to put everything away without having to squash it all together. It occurred to me that it's good to be reminded not to take little luxuries for granted. A little gratitude always feels good.

Doings of the young man as of late

Henry's got a thing about containers and shuffling the contents of one to another, particularly when those contents are liquid. Today, I watched him pour some water from his water bottle into his little red wagon, then lift the wagon to his lips and drink the water from there. I guess sometimes the easy way isn't the fun way.

When I was young and I heard adults talk about how fast kids grow up, I thought they were full of shit because it seemed to me as if I couldn't get grown up fast enough. Being a kid felt like a long drawn-out pain in the ass. And of course, now's the part in my little narrative where I tell you about how I see things differently now that I'm on the other side of the generational divide. It seems such a cliche thing to say but it's so damn true. It seems like Henry does new and amazing stuff everyday that I don't manage to get down in writing. I suppose I have this idea that I'll have this blog to look back on in my old age as a record of what was going on in our lives all those years ago, but who knows, maybe, hopefully I'll still be too busy with the present to spend too much time on the past.

I will say that Henry's in this language phase now that I already know I'm going to miss when it's gone. It's as if he's taking all the words he knows and trying them out in combinations to see how they sound together. By far, the best of these combos is "doodoo-mao." To explain: Doodoo is Henry's name for his crazy great aunt from New Orleans, a name he came up with all on his own, lest ye think we were calling her names. And mao (as in Tse-Tung) is his word for cats, a word he settled on after hearing a cat talk its talk. How doodoo and mao came together is a mystery for the ages, but together they are.

There's also this love affair with cars that's brewing. When we walk out to our car, he points and shouts "tacah!" Cars drive by us on the street. "Tacah!" He sees the car out the window. "Tacah! Tacah!" It could be that he inherited the love of all things mechanical that seems to run in his mom's side of the family. He sure as hell didn't get it from me. He loves cars so much that we even bought him one. Yes, I know, spoiling our child with a fancy car before he even has a license, contributing to the ruination of today's youth. It could be that the car is one of the best places to rock out. Just tonight, the little guy got to hear that kickass new White Stripes song for the first time, and he banged his little head as much as his car seat would let him.