Life in the deep 'burbs
The kids seem to be enjoying our new house, and they certainly love the ol' swimming hole we can walk to. They can splash around for hours in there. I love the water too, but now I'm a boring grownup and I don't seem to want to splash around for hours but would rather take a dip and then go lie on the beach. We had a real nice time there two weekends ago with a family from our previous town who have two kids roughly Sarah and Becky's age. We met them at school through the kids, obviously, which is apparently the only way to make new adult friends once you're a parent, but that's OK.
The only drawback to the new place from the kids' standpoint is that it's bigger and has higher ceilings, which means it's echoey and hard to locate the source of a sound or make yourself heard at the other end of the house even at top volume. So when we're all at home with the adults are puttering somewhere and the kids playing, quite often the kids, especially Becky, will suddenly realize we're not in the line of sight and yelp out "Mommy?!" So I say "What?" (annoyance in voice proportional to how long it's been since the last yelp) and they will then say "Where are you??" and I have to say exactly which room rather than just "Here," or else they're satisfied with just hearing my voice and close the conversation by saying "I love you" -- a phrase that obviously translates in this context to "Just checking to make sure you didn't sneak away to Vegas when I wasn't looking."
The outside is still post-construction, though we had a landscape dude come today to estimate costs for a massive heap o' topsoil and grass seed, but the girls had a nice time on Sunday loading rocks into the little red wagon for Daddy to haul to the pile near the garage. Best of all is the scenery around here, which is quite a bit greener and hillier than where we lived before. Becky commented in the car the other day, "What I like about Lincoln is they have roads that make your tummy feel funny. And flowers." This isn't such a big plus for Sarah, who noted that flowers attract bees, so Becky helpfully asked when bees die. Sarah's reply: "They die when they sting someone. Then they make a coffin out of flowers. And they never pollinate them." This is a kid with Heavy Thoughts. Oh well, another quarter for the therapy fund.
The only drawback to the new place from the kids' standpoint is that it's bigger and has higher ceilings, which means it's echoey and hard to locate the source of a sound or make yourself heard at the other end of the house even at top volume. So when we're all at home with the adults are puttering somewhere and the kids playing, quite often the kids, especially Becky, will suddenly realize we're not in the line of sight and yelp out "Mommy?!" So I say "What?" (annoyance in voice proportional to how long it's been since the last yelp) and they will then say "Where are you??" and I have to say exactly which room rather than just "Here," or else they're satisfied with just hearing my voice and close the conversation by saying "I love you" -- a phrase that obviously translates in this context to "Just checking to make sure you didn't sneak away to Vegas when I wasn't looking."
The outside is still post-construction, though we had a landscape dude come today to estimate costs for a massive heap o' topsoil and grass seed, but the girls had a nice time on Sunday loading rocks into the little red wagon for Daddy to haul to the pile near the garage. Best of all is the scenery around here, which is quite a bit greener and hillier than where we lived before. Becky commented in the car the other day, "What I like about Lincoln is they have roads that make your tummy feel funny. And flowers." This isn't such a big plus for Sarah, who noted that flowers attract bees, so Becky helpfully asked when bees die. Sarah's reply: "They die when they sting someone. Then they make a coffin out of flowers. And they never pollinate them." This is a kid with Heavy Thoughts. Oh well, another quarter for the therapy fund.
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